


A Thousand Ways to Say I Love You

by Deadmockingbirds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom!Cas, Consensual spanking, Corporal Punishment, Crying Castiel, Domestic Discipline, Dominant Dean, Eccentric angel Castiel, Fluff, Jealous Castiel, Kink, M/M, Marking, Naive Castiel, Non-Consensual Spanking, Ownership talk, Sex, Sexual Content, Smut, Submissive Cas, Sweetness, Tattoos, artwork by Arkham Insanity, top!dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 14:58:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4839740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deadmockingbirds/pseuds/Deadmockingbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heaven saves Dean from Hell, by gifting him an angel. Except now he's got to keep him and there's no instruction manual. Dean falls in love, but Sam's worried the angel can never love Dean back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizard Whisperer](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Lizard+Whisperer).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is began as a prompt from Lizard Whisperer, or as everyone knows her: The one who makes the kick-ass pictos! 
> 
> I'm so lucky to get much of her picto love, which I know takes her fucking hours to make and are works in and of themselves. She sent me a prompt in bits, which my muse turned into this story. Basically, she wanted to see a Top!Dean with a Bottom!Cas complete with Cas spankings set in the SPN verse and Map table sex. 
> 
> This work was supposed to be a one-shot, but as I've said before, yeah, just doesn't happen for my wild imagination, so it turned into a 5 chapter story. Hope y'all enjoy, but most of all, to Tree, I hope you enjoy the fuck outta this, like I do your pictos. I put so much love into this for ya! Thank you with all my heart!
> 
> And because her love for me knows no bounds, she had some lovely art commissioned for me, created by Arkham Insanity. Look for them in chapters 2 and 4.
> 
> Some Things Before You Read
> 
> * I haven't necessarily followed chronological order in terms of when events happened within the actual SPN season. I used events as I saw fit for the story.
> 
> * The story is non-linear-ish
> 
> *I've never actually played RISK, only watched others play. My usage of the game in this story was also to serve its purposes, I'm sorry if I offend any serious RISK players (you'll see).
> 
>  
> 
> Although there is question over consent at first (something Sam and Dean are trying to figure out) I feel by the end, the reader can see that Cas is consenting wrt sex and in all ways, but it begins with doubts in that area, since the storyline is centered around that issue. However, I am NOT going to put a dub-con tag. It isn't dub-con, so I'm not going to put the tag. Thanks!

**NOW**

"I'm sorry, Dean, but I couldn't just let you die!" Cas kneels on the cold floor of the bunker, crushed to pieces. He hasn't said it, he won't say it, but Dean knows it.

"Twenty-five children are dead and you could have saved them, I told you, _ordered_ you to save them." _Ordered you to save them_. That still feels weird coming out of Dean's mouth. He's spent a fuck load of time convincing the angel that he's his own person, that Dean doesn't own him, that he's not required to kneel at Dean's feet. Dean's spent that same length of time (the fuck load) convincing himself and Sam that Cas isn't a mindless robot sent to be his slave (least not now). Contriving all kinds of ways to test the varying theories he and Sam have come up with regarding Cas and thinking they have all the answers, only to arrive here yet again, this place of uncertainty.

"I disobeyed you, but you'll punish me, right Dean? Please. It will all be better then," Cas begs.

Of some things, Dean is certain: The angel needs structure (rules) and consequences (punishment); that he learned early on, but so many other things are less certain.

"That's not how it works, Cas. I can't just…" Dean trails off because it probably does work like that for the angel and if you asked Dean, especially right now, a lot of things are fucked up in angel land. He'd like to climb the fucking bean stalk to Heaven and let them know just how fucked up he thinks they run things, least when it comes to their angels.

"W-why, Dean? Why?" The angel's practically shaking and because Dean is the 'lucky' recipient of one pet angel he can _feel_ , his body empathizes with the angel, also feeling the terror the angel is experiencing, through their 'profound' bond. Of course Dean doesn't think of the angel as his pet, those are just the sarcastic thoughts running through his head, because he's fucking pissed right now. He thinks further terrible thoughts, like maybe if Cas were a 'pet,' he would have fucking listened like the mindless robot Sam suspected he was when Cas first came home with him and twenty-five kids wouldn't be dead right now. Sure, Dean would be dead, but better him than kids. Least Dean thinks so.

But Cas isn't a mindless robot and because he's always looking, Dean sees this as further proof of that. Dean's come to learn that sometimes it's hard to reconcile human morals and ethics with angel ones—it took Dean _and_ even brainiac Sam, a long time to learn what they know now, which is only a scrap of what they could know.

"I will be punishing you Cas, but I'm too angry right now. You can fucking wait." The angel trembles before Dean like Dean's god himself, which Dean supposes, he might be to Cas. Cas with his twisted, devout sense of faith in Dean, his eternal worship for Dean of which, Dean didn't have to do a thing to earn. Even with all the times he's fucked up with Cas, none of that worship has ever diminished—though it well should have. What the fuck kinda juice do they jack their feathered slaves up with anyway? _Heaven_. Dean bets Walter White is up there right now in his crystal baking motor home handing out fresh 'treats' to fucking kittens and puppies.

No. Here with Dean is better than Heaven, and Dean's a fucking liar if he claims that's the only reason he 'keeps' Cas. Maybe in the beginning he would have been able to live without Cas, but now his soul is tied to Cas; Dean won't let Cas go for anything.

"You're _my_ fucking savior, Cas. I don't own you," Dean's said before, in the days where Dean stupidly tried to flat out tell Cas that he doesn't belong to Dean. Shit like that sent the angel into a frenzy at the time, and still does, one near impossible to bring him down from; Dean's learned to avoid it by telling Cas he's Dean's, often as he can find applicable. Cas wants to be Dean's, fights for it and damn you if you tell Cas otherwise. Cas is proud to 'serve' Dean.

"C'mon. Off your knees. Just, go to our room Cas. I'll deal with you later and I'd better not find you on the floor."

"Y-yes, Dean." It's weird to watch an angel shake in terror and shuffle away cloaked in shame, from a mere human's words. Sure that human is built like steel. He's cut the heads off over a thousand vampires armed with nothing more than a machete and a bit of dead man's blood. He sleeps with fear (one eye open), lives with fear, but won't let it over come him—he dances on fear's grave. Yeah, sure. All of that's true, Dean'll admit that, but it still doesn't seem right to have an angel of the lord (one that could blast him to smithereens) run from him like that, but no matter how he phrases it to Cas, or as long as Dean lives, Dean doesn't think he'll ever be able to erase that from Cas. Cas fears Dean whether Dean likes is or not. Not nearly as much as he did before, but just enough that in situations like this, he's gonna act like a 'bad dog.' Fuck. Fuck Dean's life up the ass.

Dean knows overall, that punishing Cas is the right thing to do, and he'll do it, but he'll never stop weighing the whys and the why nots against each other before each possible instance. Sure, sometimes it's cut and dry, but often it's complicated scenarios like this one—it's not always easy. There is a strange sort of ownership he's come to realize he has over the angel, whether he wants it or not. One he's still never been able to explain that one to Sam completely, but Sam has come to reason out why even if he doesn't exactly get it and Dean can't blame Sam for that.

Hell. There are still moments Dean questions his own ability to reason out certain things about Cas. This is when he thinks Sam could've been right on particular counts, all along. Sam's not convinced that the angel could possibly understand love, not like a human does anyway. He doesn't think Cas is programmed to give and receive love, just to worship who they're told to worship. Furthermore, angels are on a mission for Heaven and no matter how devoted an angel might seem to a human, that angel is devoted to Heaven first, his human second. Everyone after that is collateral damage.

Dean's never blamed Sam for thinking that and he might agree with him, if he were looking from the outside too, but that's impossible now. When Cas first talked of the 'profound bond' they share, Dean figured that was hoo-doo, angel, bullshit talk.

But too much has happened now for him to live in the bliss of that particular ignorance.

The tattoos on his skin crackle, sending an eerie jolt of pain through him, but it's not physical pain exactly. It's gut-wrenching sadness. It's self-pity so deep, it tugs at your insides making them want to collapse inward and suck into some unseen black hole in that pit where your despair lives. And the shame. The shame is the worst part, a dragging down sort of feeling making every thought and every movement heavy, which sprouts into a stabbing, paralyzing guilt. He knows what this is; he's felt this before, too many times.

Cas is crying.

Every instinct in him, both his own and the ones he inherited when he 'inherited' Cas, tell him to go to the angel, practically fucking scream at him to just get him there with Cas. Cas _needs_ him, but Dean refuses. If he goes to Cas now, he'll just end up sticking his cock so far up him, claiming the angel again and again…he loses perspective when he stares at Cas for too long. No. Nu-uh. He can't go to Cas now.

Good perspective is exactly what he needs right now and he knows just where he's going to get it.

Sam.

**THEN**

Cas sits there, doing what he always does: Staring up at Dean adoringly like Dean invented fucking fire and the universe and like, fucking Nutella too. "Stop it, Cas. That's annoying."

Cas flinches and looks at the floor. "Sorry, Dean."

"No, argh, Cas, I…fuck." It's always a fucking disaster. It's just the way Dean talks, the way he's always talked, but Cas takes it like he's displeased his 'master.' Dean's already figured this out by now, but sometimes it's frustrating; suffocating. "You didn't do anything wrong Cas."

"My actions angered you. I don't, I don't mean to stare, but you fascinate me."

"I fascinate you? Cas stop staring at the ground and look at me."

"I, I, if I do, I don't know that I can help being…well I'm mesmerized by you Dean. It's probably better I look at the floor."

That makes Dean turn a couple different shades of red and he has a decision to make: Have Cas stare at the floor like he's a fucking slave whenever he's present, or have him stare at Dean like a doe-eyed teen. God dammit. "Cas, I'd rather you look at me than the floor, so, could you just try to keep the worship to a minimum?"

"I'll try," he says looking up, but already the blue eyes are beaming at Dean, his sun, moon and stars. "Would you still like me to tell you why you fascinate me?"

Dean is Cas's favorite topic. Just like Dean could talk about various rock bands 'till he's blue in the face, Cas could talk about nothing, but Dean until the end of eternity and he does. The only upside to it, is how much it annoys Sam; Dean likes when he gets to watch that…and sometimes eggs the angel on to amuse himself.

"Go nuts, darlin'," Dean says running a hand through Cas's hair, which sends shockwaves of contentment and pleasure through Cas that make Cas purr.

"I usually start with your eyes. I like to figure out, which wavelength of green they are each day and count every line in them just to make sure I didn't make a mistake yesterday. What I can never puzzle out, is how they've managed to get _that_ shade of green. I've compared them to every other green on Earth, the world over and nothing matches them, nothing pales them, they are the most unique set of eyes on the planet and starting there, already I'm proud to serve you, proud the holy Father would pick you for me. Just staring at your eyes makes me feel unbelievably lucky and that's only the start of it. There's so much more I know I've yet to get to after your eyes, but I'm scared to leave them too soon, in case I've missed something."

Dean wishes he never asked. Already he feels uncomfortable and is shifting in his seat and if that's how much Cas has to say on his eyes—the irises alone, how long are they going to be here talking about the rest of them? Dean laughs uneasily. "You count my eyelashes too?" he jokes in attempt to shed some of the suffocating confinement he feels, in moments like these when 'owning' an angel is too much.

"I do," Cas nods, and Dean can tell he's giddy as fuck, hopeful he's done something right for his human. "At the moment you have one hundred and fifty-three on the right and one hundred and forty-seven on the left."

"At the moment?"

"You had one hundred and fifty-four on the right this morning, but one fell out. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of those, I was able to save that one, but hair is worse, do you want to know how many strands of hair you have?"

Really, really, not. "Uh, not right now. Cas, what did you mean by 'save that one?' Do you save my fucking eyelashes?" There's no anger in Dean's voice, but by the way Cas winces slightly, he knows Cas is second guessing the release of that information.

"I, I, I keep them," he swallows. "Do, do you…was I not supposed to?" For having spent his angel life in some fucked up kind of 'human learning school' up in heaven, Cas knows surprisingly little about human behaviors.

"Naw, it's okay, Cas. They're yours." _Great, my own creepy ass angel stalker._ It's not the first time Dean's thought this, it won't be the last.

Cas's body relaxes. "Thank you Dean. When I first began collecting them, I had intended to try sticking them back on you, but then I came to the conclusion that humans are supposed to lose them to make room for new ones. Since you didn't need them and didn't seem to miss them, I kept them, but I probably should have asked." He looks at the floor again; the submissive gesture pisses Dean off.

"Eyes to me, Cas. Don't make me tell you again," Dean says, feeling bad about giving an order, but it's the only way Cas fucking listens. That's the weird dichotomy of his angel. He won't disobey Dean's order, unless it's something he thinks could endanger his human (though he wouldn't even do that in the _very_ beginning), but he doesn't necessarily wait for Dean to tell him to do things either. Like with this whole fucked up version of a stamp collection he's got going. He didn't think to ask permission to do it, didn't think anything was wrong with it, until now (got to count for something right?) but Dean will be damned if he'll let Cas cow to him like that, even if he has to make it a rule, so the angel will do it, even if it's without the understanding.

"Yes, Dean. Sorry."

He also wishes Cas wouldn't apologize, so goddamn much, but he'll save that one for another day. "I don't care about the eyelashes, Cas. It's freaking weird, but it's harmless."

"Thank you, Dean. They are precious to me. Every part of you is. Can I tell you about your lips?"

Dean closes his eyes then opens them again. He wants to tell him no, because he really doesn't want to fucking hear Cas talk about his lips. He'll have to stop Cas at some point anyway because there's no way Dean is going to sit here and hear about the bits of fluff between his toes, or how many flakes of skin he loses hourly, or whatever other weird crap Cas is fascinated by about him, but he can listen, at least until he's finished this cup of coffee, about his lips.

He can do this, because Cas isn't the only one fascinated, Dean is too, by Cas. It's just…it takes a different form than Cas's fascination with him. Dean gets excited about the way his heartbeats whenever Cas is near, or whenever he thinks about him for too long. He wants to allow himself to feel that special pounding of his heart freely, as he gazes at all the wonder and beauty that is Cas. He might not count the flecks in Cas's eyes (he still knows how blue they are) and he might not, oh god, save his freaking eyelashes, but he senses the radiance of Cas's grace like it's part of him. Sure the vessel Cas is in is attractive, with its rugged brown hair and toned physique, but Dean knows that it's not really Cas. Cas, real Cas, is somehow able to shine through this vessel and improve it, making it the most sublime thing Dean's ever seen and when he stares at it for too long, Dean's skin tingles and he forgets about the whole world. He has to look away and focus on something else, anything else, just to function. Is this something like what Cas means with his insane version of fascination?

He has to pretend that his cock doesn't harden, filling so full he's afraid it will break the skin when he's near Cas. Every part of him wants to be _in_ Cas, be connected with him skin to skin. When he stares at Cas, he feels free to imagine all the things he'd do if he were allowed to really make Cas his. He could spend hours, envisioning how Cas would moan beneath him; how he would move; what he would look like when he came. These thoughts are so wrong, he usually looks away too, like Cas does, but never at the floor, so he doesn't want Cas looking at the fucking floor either.

When he watches Cas speak, like now, Dean doesn't have to look away and he feels like he has permission to think about all the things he'd like to do to Cas and feel all the ways his insides twist and turn with a longing for Cas that he can never quench.

So while it's a different form of fascination, it's fascination all the same, only Cas's kind, makes him feel guilty about his kind and makes him wish Cas would stop being fascinated with him all together.

Cas is nothing but a slave who pathetically worships his owner and Dean will be dammed if he takes advantage him.

Months Later

Cas comes into the room and looks for Dean like an excited puppy, just like every morning. It's like Dean never gets old, he's always the angel's shiny new penny and Dean (right or wrong) loves it. Loves it not, so secretly these days. He doesn't openly admit it, but it's pretty freaking clear to anyone who's got eyes.

Dean pats the bench seat beside him and can't help straddling the bench, sideways, manhandling Cas to do the same, so he can wrap his arms around him and pulls Cas's back to press against Dean's chest and the beating heart inside him that beats for Cas.

It's the only way Cas feels comfortable enough to sit _with_ Dean anyway. He feels it more appropriate to sit at the floor by Dean's feet as he's explained to Dean time and time again (something he was taught his human would like), but Dean forbids it.

Dean can now sense how wrong sitting by Dean feels to Cas, something that started happening a little while ago—Dean being able to sense what Cas feels, almost like he's feeling it himself. Just another fucking eerie thing that came with the Cas package, but Dean's already learned to accept it.

He's learned to accept a lot of things about Cas. How much Cas worships him unconditionally just being the tip of that iceberg, along with all of Cas's eccentricities. The way Cas _acts_ like a slave, but Dean _knows_ that's not true, not anymore. Not since the shift in their bond took place—where Dean began to _feel_ what Cas was feeling.

Sam can't accept Cas's behaviors. Not from lack of trying and _still_ trying. Sam and Dean talk about Cas often, but Sam lacks the intrinsic senses Dean's been gifted, the ones that came with the angel. Dean's not mad that Sam can't understand, frustrated, hell yeah, but not angry…okay, well sometimes things get heated, but not on the whole. If anything, it's Dean that feels deficient, that he's the one doing a piss poor job of explaining it to Sam in a way he can understand.

Sam's concern buds from caring about both Dean and Cas, so it's easy not to get too angry over the whole ordeal, but it is hard, discarding the possibility that maybe Sam's right. Sam has always been the smarter one of the two in Dean's opinion, maybe Sam sees things clearer than Dean is able to, especially being so closely connected to Cas, which worries Dean. Cas and Dean, have come to this comfortable place of touching, which Dean knows they both like, but the fear that he could be taking advantage of the angel, still occupies a corner of his mind.

More prominently, Dean believes he's just as much Heaven's slave as Cas is; that they're in this (whatever it is) together (that's soothing on one count). He thinks it's possible that he's somehow been just, as tangled into the web Cas can't seem to escape and that he may not know anymore what his real feelings are. Maybe he's the one being pimped out to an angel and not the other way around?

Whatever the case, Sam doesn't think it's right that Dean touches Cas like he does. Sam doesn't believe Cas is capable of true consent to intimate sorts of touches, because Cas is brainwashed to believe he's Dean's slave and nothing more, that he should do whatever pleases Dean. While it might appear as if Cas is thinking for himself sometimes (Dean shamefully admitted to Sam that Cas collects his eyelashes like pogs) each thought is derived from what would best make Dean happy. Touching him is like touching a child, Sam says. Cas has no more capacity to understand intimate touching than would Dean's ex, Lisa's son, Ben. He might appear to be consenting, but it's not the same as him or Dean consenting.

When the alternative is Cas kneeling at his feet (because, Dean's learned, Cas is only comfortable beside Dean when Dean's touching him) Dean is able to convince himself that the table nestling and light petting (he likes to run fingers through Cas's hair absently while he eats breakfast) is better than that. It's got to be, right? It's not sexual (no matter how hard his cock is he's not using it) and everyone deserves a little kindness, even 'brainwashed' angels. Better to have him sit against Dean and feel the lazy, satisfied happiness pouring off him than the nervous, trembles Dean feels when Cas is kneeling on the floor ('cause he still trembles there even if he claims it's more comfortable. Dean thinks he's full of shit), or even in the seat beside him. Dean's touch calms the angel.

"Do you want more coffee, Dean?" Cas croons, enjoying Dean surrounding him.

"You're not my slave Cas, I can get my own refill."

"I know, Dean. You always say that. Can't I do something nice for you?" The angel seems almost, irritated. Dean's just happy to finally be able to have these conversations with the angel and have the angel understand that, or at least pretend to, though Dean's ninety percent sure it's the former. Sam thinks that when Cas says he knows he's not a slave, it's because Cas knows that's what Dean wants him to believe; it's still Cas pleasing Dean.

"Of course you can, darlin'. I just want to make sure you know." Dean even has to give him this, allow him to serve him hand over foot (yet another thing Sam doesn't get) lest it dim Cas's luminous grace a fraction, because that's what happens every time Dean says no to something Cas wants to do for him.

No matter how many times Dean gets scolded by Sam for calling Cas 'darlin',' Dean does it anyway. It brightens Cas's whole vessel and eases his ever-present batch of knotted nerves. Cas is still nervous around Dean, far less than in the beginning, but still far more than Dean would like. He tries to ease the angel as much as he can; he hopes one day the angel won't fear him quite so much.

Dean watches as Cas gets up to retrieve the pot then pours him the coffee, bringing with him another donut that Dean didn't ask for, but Cas seems to know he wanted. After he returns the pot to its place in the coffee maker, he stands before Dean like he doesn't want to assume he just 'gets' to return to Dean's literal lap of luxury, Dean catches his eyes flicker to the floor and sees his knees about to give way. Before he can make his decent, Dean snatches his wrist, yanking him down to him, just as before, with Cas in front and Dean behind; he doesn't intend to let out the near growl, but that's what he does. "You belong up here, with me Cas. Not on the floor. Never on the floor."

A Month-ish Later

Sam warned him about this and Dean promised it would never happen, that he'd never do anything other than the touching (which he has good reason for) but it's happening. Somehow, light petting turned to medium petting and medium petting (absent hair carding, became absent toying of Cas's nipples) led to this: Kissing.

Dean's sure it's not entirely his fault, he's only willing to take half of the blame if this goes to trial with Judge Sam presiding. It began as a normal non-hunting day, with Dean playing his and Sam's own version of Risk, using a Costco sized bag of Skittles, with Cas, and the map table. Dean always cheats ('cause Cas lets him) stealing some of Cas's Skittles from Cas's countries, while Cas is distracted staring at him; eats them, then pretends he doesn't know what Cas is talking about when Cas asks about them.

Cas claims that when Dean laughs, it's like a million bubbles popping along his insides, which reminds him of the feeling it is to float on the clouds in Heaven. It makes him want to float with Dean. The first time Cas said it, he wondered if that was the angel equivalent of asking him to be his prom date, the fifth time he said it, he knows it's true because now the angel's tongue is down his throat.

Dean laughed a lot previous to Cas playing tonsil hockey with him, knowing what it does to him. Not that the laughs weren't real, they were all real, but sometimes Dean's held back laughs, concerned he would lead the angel on, due to his hunch (why oh why do his hunches always have to be right?) but today he played with Cas, knowing what it does to him, wanting him to feel the bubbles, because he was feeling them too. Dean doesn't know what floating on a cloud feels like, but if it feels anything like it does when he's with Cas then he wants to live on a fucking cloud. With Cas.

"I didn't fucking eating nothing, Cas. You sure your angel mojo's working right?" all of this said whilst chewing on at least four of Cas's green Skittles (Dean's eyes) he stole off of Russia and three of Cas's pink Skittles (Dean's lips) he stole off of Brazil and followed by Dean's husky, whiskey Jack laugh—the one that he knows would make Cas bubbly.

That's the last thing Dean remembers and now it's this: Cas trying to climb down his throat, tongue first, Dean responding by letting him, opening his mouth just the right amount, parting his teeth and using his tongue to pull Cas's in further, instead of shoving it into Cas's mouth.

He's wanted to do this forever. He wants to do this forever.

Ignoring the erection he gets at the breakfast table, with Cas's ass pressing into it has become near impossible. Every shift and every breath Cas takes spikes Dean's arousal. Sam catches him staring at Cas's lips, longing for a taste and has to clear his throat, so Dean'll break from his desire, long enough to eat. But while he can distance himself from his desire for Cas in fits and starts, it's never going away and has only grown.

Now that this moment has finally come, just as Sam knew it would and likely Dean too despite all of his adamant denial, it's a bomb going off. It's fourth of July fireworks—now that Dean's been ignited, all that's left is the beautiful explosion of colors and Dean wants to enjoy the beauty of it before the guilt sinks in. He pushed it today, okay, so it's actually a lot his fault. He drove Cas over the edge, all Cas did was hang onto Dean's lapels and pull Dean with him.

They're interrupted by a loud, angry throat clear. Dean yanks himself off of Cas, while Cas flounders for a moment, wondering why his tongue is hooking nothing but air, until he realizes Dean's stopped them. "Didn't you like it Dean? I wanted you to like it. I wanted you to float on the clouds with me." He's oblivious to Sam, or more likely, he knows Sam's there, but is more concerned with Dean.

"You see Dean? He's just trying to please you," Sam points out.

"I am. Sam's right, I'm trying to please you," Cas readily agrees.

It's all so confusing for Dean. They're both saying the exact same thing, but the _way_ each says it _feels_ different. It's obvious Sam still feels it's taking advantage, by the tone in his voice. With Cas, Dean knows he means that sentence literally, because he does revel in pleasing Dean. Cas in turn, thinks Sam was speaking just as literally. He knows how much Dean loves and respects Sam, Cas is meticulous about finding ways to agree with Sam to make Dean proud. All of that is wrapped up in Cas's response…but Dean doesn't _feel_ like Cas means it how Sam thinks he means it.

While he's got nothing to prove otherwise (especially since Cas has just agreed) Dean can't reconcile the 'just,' that Cas was _just_ pleasing him. It's this shadow of doubt, this lack of justification that makes Dean feel he needs to rely on Sam to be his moral compass on this one. He wants to do right by Cas.

Even if Sam is right, Dean knows in his bones Cas would never understand the difference, what being taken advantage of means, to a human anyway. Dean could do whatever he wanted to Cas, Cas's mind wouldn't see it as wrong. Just the opposite. Dean knows nothing would make the angel happier.

Except Dean would know.

And when you can't stand your own reflection in the mirror anymore, what then?

Dean doesn't have enough information to know whether Sam's wrong or right. Just one of his famous almost never wrong hunches and that's not good enough for _his_ Cas, so he pulls further away from Cas. Satisfied, Sam walks out of the room.

Cas starts shaking, fighting back racking sobs that are pounding in Dean's skull. "Cas," Dean warns as he grabs his own hair in his hands, but Cas doesn't stop. "Cas," he tries again, as the pounding gets worse, his skull threatening to explode.

"I, I'm sorry De-ean. I did some-something wrong. I d-d-didn't do it right. Our f-first time was supposed to be special," he wails. "I wanted it to be special for you. Please you, like Sam said."

Incongruent. Dean weighs each word against the next making sense of them individually, but the whole is incongruent in this head. It sounds like Cas has been planning this, thinking about this. If someone has the ability to premeditate such acts, isn't that more than consent?

No matter how much he wants it to be a firm yes, the best he can come up with is that it depends on the circumstances and it's Cas's last words about pleasing him that still make Dean doubt Cas's ability to consent to sex stuffs.

Dean takes his frustration out on the Skittles, scattering them everywhere, throwing them at the walls and even at Cas who's freaking the fuck out now, curling himself into a little ball crouched on the floor and still crying the sobs Dean can feel in his head. Why does today have to be the day he feels Cas inside him this intensely? It's like their kiss has taken Dean deeper into Cas; he can feel more because of that kiss.

When Dean's done, he rushes to Cas, crouches down and pulls Cas to him, yanking them both to the floor. Cas lets him, though Dean knows Cas has the strength of eighteen Supermans and could easily refuse and latches onto Dean still crying. Dean didn't know angels cried until he met Cas. He didn't know much about angels at all really, but even in the early days of Cas, when he learned that Cas pulled him out of Hell, he never imagined an angel could cry until he saw and even now, as he witnesses it, he has a hard time believing it's really happening.

An angel crying is the most horrible thing imaginable. It feels like the whole world is dying. Like all the happiness and goodness there ever was has been stuffed into a dark, ugly box that will never have the sunshine on it again. You'd trade your shattered bones, for it to stop.

Dean knows how much Cas likes to be held. He _knows_ it, so he fucking does it and damn the world, damn himself if this is a bad thing. "Shh darlin'. It was perfect, our first kiss was more perfect than I imagined it," Dean says quietly.

"Y-you imagined it too?" he sniffles. Sniffling Dean can handle.

"For so long," Dean finally admits out loud and wipes at Cas's tears while he watches Cas beam through watery eyes. Admitting his desire for Cas is so easy when it's just him and Cas. He knows it's something only the two of them can understand, because they're the only ones who feel it, they're the only ones who feel each other.

"I was so sure Dean, I felt it through our bond at least I thought I did. For a moment, when you pulled away, I thought I'd got it wrong and…and…"

"And what Cas?"

"I thought I had been put me with the wrong human, it happens sometimes, not often, but it's possible within family members because the bloodlines are so close. I thought maybe I was really meant for your father, or even your child. The pair will know upon the first kiss if it's wrong."

"That doesn't sound like something that could be your fault, you said you thought _you_ got it wrong?"

"The angel still has to get the timing right. You can have the ri-ight pair," he stutters having trouble speaking, Dean holds him tighter. "Kiss at the wrong time and the bond won't take to the next level."

The next level? Wait. There are levels? The pounding in his head, feeling Cas deep within his guts: That must be the bond gripping its way, hooking into Dean. Dean should feel violated, but all he can feel is relief. This is it, this is his proof for Sam. Hell. If anyone's floundering in the dark, it's Dean. He's the one who was given an angel to without the freaking instruction manual and now the 'profound bond' that has been growing between them since Cas gripped him tight and pulled him from perdition has just spread. Dean has no way of knowing if it's a blooming garden, or a virus.

"I want to be yours Dean. I want so bad to be yours, I ache. It hurts Dean."

"Hush, Cas. No more aching, okay? You are mine. You're in here now," Dean says giving in; hoping Cas will know what he means.

"It worked?"

"Pretty sure."

Cas puts his hand over Dean's chest and closes his eyes. Dean knows when Cas reaches out with his grace because he can feel. It's warm and it's surreal and if it is a virus, fuck it. Dean gives it full permission to infect him, so long as he can always feel Cas like this. "I am. I'm in there Dean." His whole body sags like a huge weight has been lifted off him, he snuggles closer to Dean and Dean wonders who owns whom. They lay like that a long time, not speaking.

"I did eat them. I ate your Skittles Cas," Dean admits. He's not sure what else to say. Nothing else seems right.

"I know you did Dean."

"Have you been reading my mind?"

"No. I'd never do that without your permission, unless you were hurt, knocked out and couldn’t tell me what was wrong."

"Then how could you know?"

"For a hunter, you're not very stealth when you play Risk."

A little stung, Dean is silent for a while longer, Cas is content to lay there with him as they are for all time, he's sure. "Dean?"

"Yeah, darlin'?"

"Can I kiss you again?"

Oh, _now_ he asks. "Not today," is the most Dean can promise.

"Oh but, we will kiss again?"

Dean looks into those blue, blue eyes, staring up at him hopeful, terrified of rejection. Fuck morals when they have the capacity to cut someone's limbs off and let them bleed out. "We'll kiss again."

Cas nods.

"But c'mon," he says helping Cas up, Cas letting him even though Cas doesn't need help to do anything, well, except get dressed (for some reason clothes bewilder the angel. Does that mean it's all naked angels up in Heaven?). "You haven't showed me your eyelash collection in a while, I'm starting to worry you quit collecting."

Excitement beams out of Cas. "Oh no. Never. I've re-doubled my efforts, so I don't lose a single one. You really want to see?" He's practically jumping, raising up on his tip toes then slamming down to his heels.

"Nothing would please me more," Dean says. Thank God, sarcasm is beyond Cas.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by: Arkham Insanity 
> 
> Commissioned by Lizard Whisperer

**NOW**

"What the fuck do I do Sam?" Dean says to his brother while he tries to tune out the angel's heartbreak. He can't. It's ripping through him like a thundering darkness, pulling at his insides, making them slosh around like a boat in a violent storm. It's hard to move against the utter sadness, it's hard to speak, or think of anything that's not: _Go to Cas_.

Sam's got that look on his face Dean knows well. It's definitely I told you so, but it's not like when Sam told Dean not to eat the grey goo at Biggerson's I told you so, it's an 'I told you so' that Sam doesn't relish in, so he doesn't say it. He's concerned for Dean _and_ Cas.

Sam cares about the angel almost as much as he does Dean. Dean's not sure if whatever spell he's clearly under catches, but Cas has latched onto something inside of Sam too and Sam can't help trying to see the angel in a positive light.

It's nowhere in the same ballpark of what Dean feels for the angel and it's not enough that Sam can't see the things Dean no longer can. Because right now he wants nothing more than to go to his angel, hold him, kiss his neck, whisper I love you (even if he never hears it back) and tell Cas everything is okay because of course he's forgiven, then claim him several times, so the angel knows it's true.

Sam heaves a long-suffering sigh. "You've gotta punish him for this Dean."

"No shit Sherlock. If this is the help I'm going to get from you, fuck it. I'm going for a drive." As if he could leave the bunker with Cas crying like he is. He'd get as far as the driver's side and sit there frozen for an eternity before he inevitably ran inside to soothe his crying angel. _No not crying_ , Dean realizes suddenly: Mourning. Cas has moved from just crying to mourning; he thinks Dean is going to send him back to heaven. Oh god. _Just hang on a little longer darlin'._

"Dean, wait. There's more, I just, I wanted to get the bad bit out of the way first. The rest is good."

Good? How could anything be good ever again? "Quit dicking around Sammy and help me. My guts are tearing out over here."

"Okay I'll try to be quick," Sam says. He may not be able to feel the magnitude of their bond in the way Dean can, but Dean's explained it often enough Sam has some idea. "Allowing someone to die, is not the same as killing them and this is how Cas will view the situation."

"The fuck it is Sam." But Dean wants to hear more. He likes where this line of reasoning could lead and he knows well that nine times out of ten, the angel's thought process is far removed from either of the two humans in the bunker. Sam has become fairly good at translating angel. Ever since the first time Dean left Sam alone with the angel, when he had to go on a hunting trip, Sam took up the interest.

"Dean just listen to me. If someone's on a path for death anyway, they were going to die. It's even happened to us more times than we can count, where we've attempted to save someone set for death and they died anyway. Does that mean we killed them?"

"Of course not, Sammy. We weren't the ones with the gun to their heads."

"That's right. We failed in our _attempt to save_ them, but we didn't kill them. We didn’t plan their death. Cas didn't kill those children either. Not in his mind and not in mine. He simply had a choice to make: You or them. He didn't send the bus over the cliff, the demon asshole did. But if he'd gone after the kids instead of you, you would have died. Considering his bond is with you, it was a no brainer for him."

"That's just the problem though, isn't it Sam? The god damned bond, he's a slave to it. You're right and you've ben right all along. I've been fucking fooling myself. He's just a heartless robot."

Sam smiles. How could he fucking smile at a time like this? He's also shaking his head. "No Dean. No. I thought all of that too, fought it hard thinking I was right, but I wasn't and this is finally the proof we need."

"It is?" Dean feels Cas's mourning turn into utter remorse. His body tenses like a string on a guitar and he has to hold the table in a vain attempt to hold himself there. He wants to hear everything Sam has to say, but he's pretty close to 'fuck it' anyway.

"Yep. Cas acted selfishly. If he had been acting as we suspect the bond works, he would have obeyed you. Haven't you been trying to get him to think for himself all this time? He's finally done what he wanted."

"It's not like he's never disobeyed me."

"Yeah, but that just proves my new theory more. Every time he's disobeyed you, it's something that could cause _you_ harm Dean. Just like now. If the bond was meant to make him your subjugate, he would have to obey you, no matter what. Disobeying you, could get him returned to Heaven, it could now and as far as we know, that's the last thing Cas wants. He was able to make a choice for something he wanted, no matter the consequences Dean. Cas isn't a mindless robot, that doesn't even make sense anymore."

Dean can't fucking help smiling for a second. It's the proof he's wanted this whole time, but he hates it had to take something like this for him to see it. "But all those kids Sam."

Sam huffs a bit frustrated. "Look Dean, let's be real. Forget Cas for a minute. If it was just you and me and it was the bus full of kids to save, or me, which would you pick?"

"Fuck you Sam. Of course you."

"Even if I'd rather you save the kids than me?"

"Fuck you and your morals Sammy…oh."

"Yeah, oh. Horrible as it is, you care about me more, even more than what I would want. You would know it could mean possible rejection from me, but you wouldn’t care. You'd do it anyway."

"Well I'll be. Yeah, you're right Sammy, I would."

"And for the record Dean, so would I. Right or wrong, it's what I would do, save you."

"But, what if it's just the bond? He saved me because of that connection we share, maybe _that's_ how he's a slave to the bond? Maybe he's been told to save me at all costs."

"I don't think so Dean. He worships you, for real. I've watched him all this time. He chose to save you because he wanted to, because he loves you."

"Is worship the same as love, Sammy?"

"Is there a difference?"

If there is, Dean can't _feel_ the difference and he doesn't want to fucking know. Another bolt of pain rips through him. He can't stay here any longer, but there's still one thing to discuss with Sam.

"You said I should still punish him. How can I do that if you, or I would have done the same thing? Isn't that hypocritical?"

"No, it's not. That's a consequence Cas understands. He still disobeyed you and he needs to know you'll hand out consequences for disobedience every time. Sure in this case it won't discourage the behavior, but it will in the least give him pause for next time. Each time he disobeys you, he'll know there is a price to pay for that disobedience. He'll have to choose whether it's worth it or not, making it _really_ have to be worth it before he'd even consider disobeying. An angel with his powers could be dangerous if he decides to have a temper tantrum, as we well know. The punishment for this particular instance should be harsh."

Dean nods grimly knowing what he's gotta do, but he can't stay any longer. He's got to go to Cas, Cas is in absolute turmoil and Dean can't live with it another second; he doesn't want Cas to either. "Thanks Sammy."

"Anytime, Dean."

**THEN**

Sam is pissed. He got stuck on angel-sitting duty while Dean got called away on a hunt with Bobby. Sam would have went instead, that would have been easier, but Sam had to do important research for another hunt and he thinks the culprit is going to strike again next week. He wants to work through some of the lore they have here, at the bunker and he doesn't know how long it's going to take. Better for him work on it than go hunting with Bobby and lose time.

Dean decided it would be best for Cas to stay at the bunker. Mostly because, as much as Bobby likes Cas, the way Dean and Cas are together weirds him out, and Sam's sure that 'everyone needs a break sometimes.' Dean probably wanted a little space from Cas's suffocating presence.

If it is true, Cas does not feel the same and his first time away from Dean for longer than a quick grocery run, is not going well. Hell, it's all around misery and he can only take the angel's moping for so long. It bothers him, but he's not sure why and that's not all.

When Dean broke the news to the angel, he flipped—like legit spazzed out. Sam's surprised the bunker is still standing. The whirlwind of holy rage that shook the building was enough to make it collapse, Sam was sure, but Dean was able to quell his angel before that happened. For once Sam was glad that Cas follows orders, almost like he can't disobey them, though Sam's not sure if it's can't disobey or won't disobey. Sam thinks Cas is terrified of the consequence he'll receive from the man upstairs, for disobeying his human—his master. Sam's tried to see it this whole clusterfuck another way, but it's hard.

Sam challenges anyone to watch the angel with Dean, kneeling at his feet (though that's much less now), jumping when Dean gives an order, allowing himself to be fondled anywhere and everyone through the bunker and not have a hard time with it. Sam doesn't want to doubt Dean, he knows his brother, knows he's one of the good guys and he's learned to trust that Dean somehow inherently knows how it's supposed to be with Cas, but there are times when he's still got to say something to Dean even if just to hear that Dean's thought things through.

Sam's long gotten over their touching and their kissing. Sam's not naïve enough to think it's going to remain above the southern border, he knows they'll go further eventually and he's actually accepted that as fact: It's breathing for those two and he's only been able to come to that understanding by watching them day after day. It's an intrinsic sort of knowing, the one Dean still can't explain, that Sam has only recently begun to feel, after living in proximity to the angel-human pair for a length of time and he knows he'll never feel it like they feel it. It's something beyond human comprehension.

Unless of course you've literally been _touched by an angel_ , like his brother has.

So yeah, they'll fuck and it'll be a little weird for Sam, but he'll accept it—it's the 'ordering around thing,' that still confuses the fuck out of him and now the punishment factor. Understand it or not, he sure was grateful to have Dean make Cas stop before he tore down the bunker, he was even grateful for the punishment that followed. Even if watching was uncomfortable.

Sam believed Dean when he said he wouldn't have done it, not of he thought Cas would behave without it. Said something about feeling it in his in his guts and straight down to his bones. He proceeded to pull down the angel's pants _and_ boxer briefs then took Cas over his knee, telling Cas if he was going to misbehave in front of Sam, he could be spanked in front of Sam. He spanked Cas's bare ass, before Sam's eyes, until the angel's bottom was an angry shade of red and Cas was crying, promising he'd _'never do it again'_. After what looked like a painful spanking (Sam was surprised that the angel could feel the pain of the spanking) Cas was then told to apologize to Sam and was sent to his and Dean's room for the night, which meant time away from Dean, which Sam was pretty sure, caused Cas greater agony than any spanking could.

[](http://imgur.com/XPafrHN)

All the while, Sam was appalled, but he watched unable to look away. There was something fascinating in the way his brother handled the angel and Sam felt there was something he could learn, so he watched then proceeded to give his brother what for when Cas was out of sight.

"What the hell was that Dean?"

"That was me, saving our asses and the bunker. You're welcome by the way."

"You told him not to do it, gave him an order. I don't see why the spanking was necessary on top of that."

"I just felt it in my guts, down to my bones Sam. This isn't the first time, you weren't here the time I tried to get him to stay home alone, and told him I was going to be longer than an hour. I wanted to surprise him and pick him up some kind of book he could put his eyelash collection into."

Sam really doesn't get the eyelash collection thing.

"He doesn't like being away from me; knew it before I asked him; he flat out told me he was still coming with me. I got pissed, cause he was ruining the surprise and in the end I was making him stay here on principle for being a douche, he had one of his angel temper tantrums, like you saw. Something inside me told me to punish him, but I ignored it thinking that couldn't be right, but it was enough I did warn him what would happen if he did it again. He was extremely apologetic, promised to never to it again and I really think he meant to, I know he tried, but well, you saw. He knows he earned that punishment. I can't let him destroy shit, or accidently hurt, maybe even kill us. It had to be done."

Sam had no argument against that, Dean was right, but Sam still couldn’t help the need to say something in support of the angel. "Maybe you shouldn't leave him then Dean."

"No way. Not only will that lead him to believe his tantrum worked, it's impossible for him to be by my side all the time. He's got to learn that sometimes we have to be apart. This will be good for him."

That was the end of that. Cas's upset over Dean leaving was apparent, but he behaved for Sam, well for the most part. He moped pathetically the first day, carrying around one of Dean's t-shirts everywhere he went, but no tantrums. Sam didn't pay much attention to him, busy with his research. He did 'put Cas to bed,' even though the angel doesn't sleep. Dean instructed Sam to help Cas put his pajamas on and crawl in, even if he just laid there all night. Said it would help Cas not miss him as much. Sam's not sure if that proved true. The angel insisted on taking one of Dean's shirts to bed (a new one with fresh Dean smell. Ew) and Sam's pretty sure he heard the beginnings of sobs as he walked out of their bedroom and closed the door.

Today, he's a little more concerned over the angel. He's got a new shirt of Dean's he's clinging to and he's sitting at the top of the stairs by the door to the bunker. Sam hears sniffling. Is Cas crying? Again? Sam doesn't know why, but it's bothering him. He's not even sobbing, it's just a quiet, miserable sound, but it's terrible and it eats at Sam. "Cas? What are you doing?"

"W-waiting for Dean," he says sorrowfully and without shame.

"Come away from there," Sam says, still looking in the tomb-like book before him, not really reading it.

Cas gets up and comes to the railing. The pout on his face makes him look five instead of however many centuries old he is. "I want to wait for Dean," he whines defiantly, clutching Dean's shirt to his chest.

Sam can read humans and creatures alike, pretty well, so he can see the defiance that's firmly rooted in the angel; he's not planning on coming away from the door anytime soon. Wow. Dean told Sam he would have to be firm with the angel, but Sam hadn't believed him. Sam decides to try the smooth authoritative voice he uses when he's a F.B.I agent. "Castiel, come away from there please."

Sam expects to be obeyed on that one, but all it does is make Cas uncomfortable. He shifts foot-to-foot looking between the door and Sam, he's not sure enough to sit down again, but he does remain by the railing instead of coming down the stairs. "I want to be right here when he gets home."

Is the angel testing him? Sam goes with another notch firmer. "Do you remember what Dean said he would do if you misbehaved for me?"

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"He said he would spank me," he says and actually puts a hand back to cover his rear.

"Do you want me to have to tell him you were misbehaving?"

"No."

"Then come away from there, I won't ask again."

That gets Cas moving, but he's sluggish, dragging his feet all the way down the stairs rather than using his wings. That right there reminds Sam why he's got such reservations about Cas's level of sophistication. Sometimes he's got the maturity of a five-year-old, while others, you know you're speaking to something older than rocks.

Cas looks at Sam pitifully. "Sit there," Sam tells him understanding the angel wants direction. He obeys, a bit moodily, but Sam doesn't call him on it. He feels bad enough making him come away from the door, but he's not going to let the angel mope—there's something painful about it for him and the angel. He doesn't like seeing Cas emotionally distraught like that. "Dean said he'd text soon as he was on his way. I'll let you know. Promise."

"Thank you, Sam."

Silence passes between them for an over an hour, Sam tries to concentrate, but with the angel sitting right in front of him, it's hard. How the hell does Dean do it all day long? Plus there are some questions he's wondering, ones he doesn't get to ask with Dean around. "I'm surprised you can feel spanking. Doesn’t your holy power, I dunno force field you from that kind of thing?"

"I understand your force field reference, Dean and I watched Star Wars together. I don't have a 'force field,' unless I put one up. That would take too much grace to maintain continuously, my vessel would break apart. My vessel can feel pain just like a human, but I do heal faster. Not to worry though Sam, my human knows how to give a good spanking and I have been suitably chastised." The angel's not embarrassed and says that like anyone would say the sky is blue.

Instead it makes Sam blush, as he wonders if it's enough to earn the angel's civility. "Aren't you mad at him for spanking you?"

" _Never._ Dean is fair and kind and good. If he says it's time for a spanking, I know it must be."

"But it hurts."

"Only for a short time to remind me to behave. I'm lucky he would take the time to correct me at all. Some humans ignore the needs of their angels."

Sam has no idea what that means, but he can see that talking about Dean is making Cas feel better and he'd like to do that for him. He may not fully understand Cas, but he's come to care about the obsessive-compulsive dude. "Do you want to tell me your favorite thing about Dean?"

The angel's blue eyes sparkle and he nods on the edge of his seat, frenzied. "I would enjoy that. Except, there are so many things to choose from, it's hard to pick my favorite thing. Would you mind if I told you several? I think you will be pleased."

Cas is just hitting his stride on Dean trivia when they get the text from Dean to say he's only one state over and he'll be home sometime after two am. Cas goes wild and begs Sam to let him make Dean a cheeseburger. He'll let the angel do anything, so long as it's not talk to him about Dean anymore, if he has to hear about how impossibly shiny Dean's fingernails are for another second, he's going to puke.

Sam makes Cas wait at the table with the burger (and fries) he's made for Dean, while they wait for the door at the top of the stairs to unlock and Dean to slide through it. He's got a large paper grocery bag with him. Cas is eager, but he waits 'till Dean reaches the bottom before he accosts him with his 'dinner,' and Sam wonders why the hell he's still up watching this? He should have gone to bed hours ago—he supposes he was worried about Dean's angel.

"Hey darlin', I missed the fuck outta you." He pulls Cas in for a one armed hug and kisses his lips. "Heya Sammy," he says over Cas's shoulder. Sam nods his hello, still watching the two, fascinated.

It's clear the angel's frantically checking him over, taking stock of him, assessing for bodily damage. "I made you this burger, it's a triple decker, I knew you'd be hungry, better come eat it. By my estimation, you've lost three point seven pounds and oh…" The angel's shoulders curl in on himself.

"What's the matter, Cas?"

"You've lost eight eyelashes, five from your left eye, three from the right." And now they're gone forever, he doesn't say, but Dean seems to know Cas as well as Sam just learned he knows Dean.

"I got something for you, too." Dean walks further in the door and puts the grocery bag down and Cas puts the plate with the burger back by Dean's chair, thrilled Dean's got something for him.

Dean pulls a small Ziploc back out of his jean's pocket, Sam doesn't see anything in it, but Cas does. "Eyelashes! Four! Thank you Dean. Thank you, thank you!" He hugs Dean and Dean squeezes him tight.

"Sorry that's not all of them, I was so excited because I thought I got them all for you. I'm not as diligent as you." The angel croons at the praise and rubs against Dean.

Sam shuts his book. "Okay, that's about all I can handle of you two for the night. It's way past my bedtime anyway."

He'll never get the eyelashes thing, which is how he knows he'll never understand them completely. But Sam's starting to think he doesn't need to for everything to be okay.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

When Dean showed up all that time ago with Cas, he showed up with more than just a skittish angel. Dean was marked with a handprint. A red, raised handprint that Dean was sure was the hand of the devil, a memento of the time he spent in hell, there were plenty of hands on him down there.

Cas assured Dean it was from him, which wasn't all that assuring. Even put his hand over top to show Dean his hand was the same size. "Why the fuck did you mark me Cas?"

"I had to weld myself to you, so the hands trying to grab you back couldn't and form a bond with you in case they were able to pull us apart so I could track you. The bond was so I wouldn't lose you, Dean—it's not as easy as it sounds to pull a human from hell. I'm sorry, it was the only way, but now, it is a symbol of that bonding, and says that I am your angel," he'd told Dean with a huge fucking giddy smile on his face. "Heaven has purpose for you."

"Yeah, we'll I'll decide if I'm here for Heaven's purpose, or not. Get this thing off of me, Cas."

"I'm truly sorry Dean, but now that we have begun our profound bond, I can't remove it, unless…"

"Unless?"

"Unless you want to send me back to heaven," Cas had croaked then, in such a way Dean never forgot it. His voice carried so much pain and disappointment, he couldn't bear the sound, so he decided a little handprint tattoo was kinda badass actually. There are assclowns walking around out there with Tweety Bird tattooed in places Dean doesn't even want to imagine, this one is way cooler than that.

As it turned out, the 'handprint tattoo' was the least of Dean's worries.

Back then, Cas was much more like a pet angel. He's come a long way since then, but _then_ is when Cas did things like kneel on the floor by Dean; he shivered and shook a lot more around Dean back in the early days. As Cas was learning about Dean, Dean was also learning about Cas.

When Cas informed Dean that angels didn't sleep, Dean figured the answer was simple: Cas could just hang around the bunker all night, maybe help them with research at night while Dean and Sam slept. Wrong. But Dean did try.

For all of Cas's obedience, he refused to leave Dean's side unless Dean was absolutely stern about it and for the first night, Dean was. He shut the bedroom door in Cas's face, like Cas was some kind of naughty puppy, telling him to stay out and climbed into bed. It wasn't long before Cas was knocking, begging, mewling and whimpering to be let in. Dean had locked the door and was well aware that Cas could blast through it, or use his wings to 'fly' inside, but Cas wasn't willing to disobey his human to that extent—apparently just enough to prevent him getting any sleep.

Dean figured the angel would calm down by morning, so he stuffed some earplugs in and was out for the count. The next morning Cas was sitting at the base of the doorframe, pitifully scratching the door and crying—it was the first time Dean had ever seen an angel cry and it nearly broke Dean apart. Especially in those early days, when the bond between the pair was still growing, Dean didn't know how to handle it, or tune it out when he needed to get work done. The pain of Cas's cries overwhelmed him and motivated him to do whatever it took to get the angel to stop. Dean felt like the biggest heel in the universe and vowed to never do that again, so he tired something else the next night.

He pulled a cot out of storage and set it up for Cas. "This isn't freaking Twilight, Cas. I'm not having someone stand over me, watching me sleep like that sparkly douchebag. You can lay in this and count fucking sheep for all I care. Don't watch me."

Cas agreed to it while Dean was awake, but when he woke the next morning, Cas was on the floor by the foot of his bed, watching him exactly like he told him not to. "Ah! Jesus Christ Cas. I told you not to do that."

"I, I'm sorry Dean, but I shouldn't have my own bed, it's wrong. I'm meant to be at your feet for when you need me. I'm here to serve you." Cas said stuff like that a lot in the early days and gave sustenance to some of Sam's theories, most potently the one where Cas could be a slave sent from Heaven. Dean wouldn't have it.

"No freaking way." No matter how much it pissed Dean off, Cas wouldn't budge on it, and no matter how Dean tried to coax him, he even resorted to ordering him into the bed, Cas wouldn't do it. Well, Cas would obey while Dean was awake, but he'd end up in the same place at the foot of his bed every morning. Fuck did it frustrate the hell out of Dean and he would have kept up the fruitless routine if not for Sam.

Sam said something offhandedly to Dean one morning when he gave Cas an errand to complete for him. It was the only way Dean could have any sort of break from Cas: if Cas was doing something for him.

"Where'd you send him this time?"

"To Greece for olives, but I told him it's imperative that it takes him a full hour."

"He didn't ask why?"

"Thank Christ, no."

"It must make you feel claustrophobic, man. Especially if he has to touch your foot when you're sleeping. I can't believe you let him do that."

"What?"

"Soooo, you don't let him do that."

"What's this about touching my foot?"

"I was up late with some research and came to ask you a question and he was just sitting there at the end of your bed holding your foot. Freaked me out, so I left."

Maybe the sparkly douche from Twilight was better. Dean interrogated Cas as soon as he got back. "What the hell is it with you dude? Why my foot?"

"I'm sorry Dean. I am compelled."

"Compelled to what? Give me a pedicure?"

"To touch you. I can give you a pedicure if you like."

"No. Would you just—no pedicures Cas, that's a firm rule."

"But I can still touch you?"

"No Cas. It's wrong." Dean could never explain exactly why it was wrong in a way that Cas could understand, but he did get Cas to stop touching his foot at night (least he's pretty sure). Cas remained on the floor each night; Dean didn't say anymore about it.

Over time their bond deepened, that's when Dean began to feel Cas more. It was tiny at first. Dean didn't know what he was feeling. Just the slightest tendrils of awareness alerting Dean to the fact that something other than Dean was in Dean.

At night he began waking up with immense, longing pain. The pain would chase him in his dreams, but upon waking would ebb away until it was nothing more than a gentle throb. Cas would be there and ask, "is it time for you to wake up now?" He'd check the clock.

"No Cas." And fall asleep only to be woken by the pain again.

It took him an entire week, of no sleep, to figure it out, but he did. It was Cas. Cas sat at the end of his bed longing to touch him all night. Turns out, angels don't understand sleeping so much. Sure they get it theoretically, but because they don't sleep, they've no conceptual awareness of sleep. If Cas couldn't touch him, he had to watch him (looking for signs of breathing) and concentrate on the steady rhythm of Dean's heartbeat to make sure he was still alive. Cas claimed touching soothed him most and gave Cas hope that Dean would come back. Feeling Dean's warmth and their connection through the bond eased Cas the most while Dean's eyes were closed.

Dean was curious about Cas's 'come back' comment and Cas told him he knew all about how when humans dream they travelled to other worlds. No matter how many different ways Dean tried explaining to Cas that wasn't true, the angel was certain of it. Said it was what they taught him in Heaven. "I don't care what you learned in freaky angel school Cas. I don't go anywhere. I'm right here, just resting with my eyes closed."

Cas did the thing where he pretended to agree with Dean, but was still uncertain. "If you say, so. You are fair and kind and good, but also wise. If you say it, it must be true."

Dean knew Cas was full of shit.

Dean got rid of the cot. "You don't sleep in it anyway Cas." And every night since the discovery, he began dressing Cas in pajama pants for the night, shirtless (so their skin could touch) and pulled Cas into bed with him.

Cas's nightly pain was muted to a dull ache (he still spent the night missing Dean) but Dean could sleep and eventually, Cas looked forward to getting to spend the night in his human's arms, blissed out 'till Dean opened his eyes again.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Dean enjoys his triple decker cheeseburger, special made for him by Cas, but he can't wait for what he's missed most: Dressing Cas for bed, pulling him close and falling asleep next to him. Before they can do that, he has to endure his angel's complaints over his most recent absence.

"I like Sam, but he's not you Dean. I ache all over, it hurt Dean," he says. Dean knows now it's the angel's way of describing that he missed Dean. "I wanted to wait by the door for you, but Sam said no. Why did he say no?"

If Dean thought it would do any good to explain to Cas the consequences of moping, he would, because Dean can easily devise that's what the angel was doing, and that Sam stopped him out of a human's sense of morals, but Cas won't see the folly in it. "He cares about you, darlin', I'm sure he just wanted to spend some time with you."

Cas nods. "I think you're right. He asked me questions, he wanted me to tell him all about you."

Dean knows his brother too well to believe that. The likelihood of Sammy wanting to hear about Dean all night (especially the things Cas decides to focus on) are exactly zero. Dean feels a sunburst of warmth that Sam would do that for Cas, knowing he missed Dean, badly. "Are you going to scold me some more, or should we hit the hay?" Dean asks. It took Cas awhile to understand 'hit the hay.' Small victories.

"Scold you? I'm _not_ scolding you. Never, Dean. That isn't my place. I just don't like it when you go away, but I would very much like to go to bed now please. I've been looking forward."

"Okay, let's go. Beam me up Scotty."

Dean taught Cas that one too, which he knows means to 'fly' them to their room. Cas grabs his hand and does exactly that.

When they first began sharing the bed together, their ritual was simple. Dean undressed Cas, first removing the khaki trench coat and placing it over the chair while Cas waited. From there he'd move on to Cas's long sleeved, white button up shirt, belt then pants. The undressing was just as clinical as the redressing into Cas's very own pair of pajama pants (he wanted green to match Dean's eyes), Dean would undress then dress into his pajamas, then they'd climb into bed, Dean would pull Cas to him and Dean would sleep while Cas laid next to him. Dean's touch soothed the angel, but it took Dean a while yet to drill into Cas that humans don't leave their 'vessels' while sleeping, so he wouldn't experience the bereavement he did in the beginning, when he used to sit by Dean's bed, longing to touch him, wondering when he'd return.

Things are different now; steps are added. Things are taken away.

The moment they hit the landing strip they're kissing.

Dean had to work hard to get Cas out of his head while he was away, which was especially hard now that their bond has deepened and expanded. The days of Dean separating himself from Cas completely, are over, Cas was always there with him, thrumming below the surface while he hunted. He knew Cas missed him so bad it hurt. He didn't want Cas to hurt, but they have to learn how to spend time apart—at least Dean does. Cas could live in his pocket if Dean let him, it's how angels are wired: To their human.

He had a job to do though and he had to get it done, but now that it's over, it can be all about Cas again. He can open the floodgates and let Cas consume him. Dean pushes Cas's jacket off and it falls to the floor and Cas has gained the bravery and comfort to do the same to Dean. After the jackets are discarded, Dean pulls back, so he can look at Cas while he undoes the buttons of his shirt. "Five hundred and fifty-seven nanometers," Cas says watching Dean's eyes. "I didn't get to see their wavelength yesterday though." Cas talking about his eyes.

Recognizing the down turn in Cas's voice, he smiles extra bright, chuckling. "You'll live, darlin'." Dean smoothes his hand up Cas's abs and runs it across his nipple and wins a sensual hiss from him.

"T-technically I'll live, but I don't like it Dean. I feel empty when you're gone, you give me purpose."

It used to worry Dean when Cas would say things like that (he'd tried to convince Cas he has a purpose without Dean), but over time he's realized that's how angels are, how they're constituted, Dean really is Cas's purpose and Cas wouldn't want it any other way.

"Aren't you going to take my shirt off Cas?" he asks removing Cas's the rest of the way and hoping it distracts him.

Cas is delighted to remove Dean's shirt and does it slowly, like Dean taught him, undoing the buttons and sliding it off letting it drop to the floor, he looks at Dean's chest and spreads his hands overtop like he can't believe he gets to. Dean kisses him again and for a while. He doesn't care that it's going on three-thirty am, he missed Cas and Cas missed him and he's going to make their reunion is fuck awesome. Cas moans into Dean's mouth, pure ecstasy, now that they've got more skin touching, it heightens their kiss.

He thinks he's going to have to tell Cas the next move, but he doesn't, Cas undoes the top button of Dean's jeans then the zipper and slides them down his legs. This part used to torture Dean back when they'd reached medium petting. They'd get as far as each other's boxers and they'd allow their covered cocks to touch as they kissed some more.

But now is different, Dean slides Cas's belt out of its loops and helps Cas out of his pants, they don't bother putting on pajamas then Dean turns out the light, pulling Cas under the covers with him. Somehow Dean feels if he does these things under the cover of darkness, it's less depraved.

Less guilty.

With Cas pulled close to him, he waits, sometimes until Cas makes the first move, sometimes until he can't anymore. He thinks if he waits, more proof will come that the things he does to Cas are what Cas wants, that he's not taking advantage of the angel who will do anything for him, the deposition has just that long to come each night and it never does. Dean touches the angel anyway.

Tonight it's Cas. "Please don't make me wait Dean. I was good. I came away from the door like Sam said to."

"I'm not makin' you wait 'cause you were bad darlin'," Dean slides a hand to Cas's nipple again, he loves Cas's nipples. "But tell me about it. Tell me how well you behaved," he breathes hot into Cas's neck, which Cas opens for him, hoping Dean will nibble, Dean doesn't disappoint.

"I, I didn't want to Dean, I wanted to wait for you. All I had was your shirt and it was losing its smell like the other one did, but I obeyed Sam." If it isn't enough for him to hear the pain in the angel's voice, he can feel it.

"I know darlin', you were so good even though it was hard and I'm proud of you."

"Then why are you making me wait?"

Of course Cas would still think Dean's punishing him.

"Is it because I didn't obey him on the first command?"

That's a hard one for Dean to answer. When the angel gets upset, it's important he learns to calm down when he's told, people can get hurt, shit destroyed if not. On the flip side, he's happy to hear that Cas isn't a mindless robot. It's one of those nitty-gritty bits he needs to hear, the bits that will make him feel better about what he's about to do with Cas. "No, darlin'. I'm not punishing you, but I do expect you to obey Sam when he says something, the first time. Understand?"

"Yes, Dean. I'm sorry."

It's hard to decipher how remorseful he is over that, or if he's just sorry to have to tell Dean of his small misdemeanor. Dean would bet on the latter. "Thank you." Dean toys at the edge of Cas's boxers.

"P-please, Dean." The _Dean_ is filled with intense longing that comes out as a whine. Dean wants to give in, he will, he's compelled, but the moment before he touches Cas's cock, is always filled with apprehension. He can't help that Sam's words are always there to criticize him. Sam doesn't mean to, he just cares and he should. The situation with Cas is forever confounding.

The tables have turned, record flipped over, and playing on repeat in Dean's mind: Maybe Dean's the one getting fucked over by his holy majesty upstairs. It's a good plan, right? Send Dean a beautiful angel, bond the two in holy matrimony (literally) and now Dean's heaven's bitch. 'Cause as much as Cas will do anything for Dean, Dean will do anything for Cas; that's no secret. What if thou holy Father needs something of 'Cas's human?' Could he say no to Cas? Probably not.

If that weren't enough, Dean isn't over the first bit of Sam's objections to Dean's relationship with Cas, even if Sam is and is onto something else. Yeah, that's right. The paint hasn't dried on the first set of Sam's objections (for Dean) and already Sam's onto the next piece of the puzzle, just as Dean _thinks_ he's decided if Cas is sanctioning or not. He's decided yes (for the record) with only small threads of doubt. It helps that Sam is less adamant that Cas is like an idolizing child in favor of his new theory (Dean very much relies on Sam's point of view). So, maybe it is Cas seducing Dean? Love is just as good a trap as any, not to mention the strange and largely unidentified profound bond growing in Dean and between him and Cas.

Fuck it's confusing.

Sam postulates that Cas might not even know he's doing it. Who knows what's involved in training an angel? Maybe he's simply taught 'how to be with his human,' and Heaven's powers do the rest, Cas really believes he's sent just for Dean. Dean's noticed that in most of Sam's speculations, he wants to think best of the angel. While Sam is cautious of Cas (a lot more than Dean's actions display he is) his explanations tend to shed innocent light on Cas almost, no, _completely_ blaming the almighty powers above.

Dean isn't built to think like that. Sam's brand of skepticism brings out Dean's brand of skepticism. What if Cas _is_ the one seducing him? This whole time, playing the innocent, ignorant angel until Dean is unconditionally consumed by him—Cas won't have to convince Dean to follow Heaven's orders, he'll go willingly. That's what Dean would do it, if he thought something important enough to save.

Just the thought crushes him—he hates thinking about Cas this way. And fuck, it's too late anyway. Jesus Christ, he saved his own fucking eyelashes for Cas and was stupidly disappointed when he found out he hadn't saved them all. He really thought he'd caught every one and was excited to show Cas, like he'd won him one of those goofy, over-sized carnival stuffies.

Dean knows that any and all of these possibilities are still on the table when it comes to Cas and that's what his apprehension is built from, what weighs on him in that space between him and Cas spooning on the bed and Dean wrapping his hand around Cas's cock. But, so far, it's only the framing of the house with nothing else to give it solid weight. Dean really should wait, research, find out more, put this thing he's got going on with Cas on hold, in the least rewind a few steps…but like Dean tends to do, especially with matters of the heart (how many times has he done stupid for Sam?) he says fuck it and shoves his hand down Cas's boxer briefs.

"Is this, is this sex Dean?" Cas asks when Dean has his hand wrapped firmly around the angel's cock and he begins to stroke it slow and sure. Dean only half wants to remove his hand. Cas sounds too innocent when he says things like that, makes Dean go back to feeling like he is violating Cas (though he's pretty sure he's not). The other half of Dean relishes in the preciousness of it all. It makes him more fiercely protective of his angel than he already is and he wants to show him everything, teach him about sex. He can't help liking that Cas is just for him.

"Not exactly, but it's what humans do to get ready for sex."

"Oh, well I think I'm ready th-then," Cas stutters as Dean continues to strokes his cock. This isn't the first time Dean's jacked Cas off, but it is the first time Cas has asked what it is they're doing and hinted to wanting to do more. By god does he want to stick his dick in Cas's ass. He wants to bury himself deep and forget where he ends and Cas begins. He won't do it tonight though.

"Not tonight, Cas."

"But, wh—"

"Not tonight."

Dean doesn't give the angel time to settle into the pout that's forming, reaching behind him to grab lube (he doesn't want to chafe Cas's vessel, even if he can heal it right away) and smears a large gob onto his palm then stuffs his hand back down to resume jerking Cas off.

Cas writhes against Dean making keening, desperate sounds as Dean uses strokes with firm pressure. Dean can feel the absolute bliss pouring off the angel in waves. This is just one of the many feelings that reassures Dean that Cas wants this, revels in it even.

Dean's own arousal matches Cas and some. All he's got is Cas's clothed ass touching his also clothed cock. That's two too many layers of clothing in the way of what he wants, but he's not going further than that. Yet. As much as Cas might think he wants it, neither of them are ready. Dean will know when they are. He doesn't know how he knows that, just that he knows.

Dean ruts against Cas's ass, stroking him, moaning in his ear, as the angel falls apart. Dean follows, hot come filling his boxer briefs and feeling a bit like a teen the first time, but it's always like this with Cas. He doesn't need much more than having Cas's tight against him, making indecent sounds. Jesus Christ, what would fucking him be like?

"Can you uh, use your angel mojo to clean us off, darlin'?"

"Yes, Dean. Dean?"

"Yeah, darlin'?"

"I like when we do that. Can we do that more?"

Of course Dean wants to do that more and just plain do more. He wants to lube up the angel's perfect hole and ram his cock in, so hard that even Cas will feel it for weeks. He badly wants the angel to be his, all his. But tonight, instead of fucking Cas, he pulls him in closer once they're clean and pets his arm gently. "Yeah, Cas. We can do that more."


	3. Three

**NOW**

Cas is curled into the smallest ball possible in the middle of their bed. He's got at least ten of Dean's shirts, that he's cocooned around and clasped in both hands is the eyelash collection that Dean finally found a book for. It's a coin collector's book (since they don't exactly make eyelash collecting books) with pages that have pockets for coins that Cas can compile the eyelashes from each week, save them and even date them if he wants.

The angel is shaking uncontrollably the tears streaming. Dean can tell the angel wants to get up and kneel by Dean's feet, beg him to keep him, but Cas doesn't believe that's going to ever happen. Dean keeping him that is. Apparently, even the angel can be paralyzed by grief if it's strong enough.

Dean sits down on the bed in front of Cas and tires to pry Cas's collection from his fingers. The angel pulls it out of his reach. "No Dean! No! This is mine. Get rid of me like I know you have to, but I get this stuff. I'm taking it with me! These are _mine_!"

The sharp stab of heartache, takes Dean by surprise and he doubles over momentarily. Now that the angel believes the moment Dean's going to get rid of him is upon him, the pain Cas feels changes to the disabling anguish of a broken heart. "Cas, Castiel," Dean pushes out roughly. "I'm not, getting rid of you."

"Y-you're not?"

The stabs of guilt and remorse are still there and so is the heartbreak-type-anguish, but it eases some, enough Dean can seat himself next to the angel without doubling over in pain. "I wasn't going to take these from you, they are yours, Cas, but I can't snuggle you if you're holding onto all this crap."

"B-but, you were so angry Dean," Cas says, not able to believe what Dean's saying yet. His eyes are wetter than Dean's ever seen them, pools of blue agony.

"I was angry Cas. I get angry all the time, you know that."

"Not at me."

"Sure I do."

"But not like that."

It's true. Dean quickly realized how much he had to control his temper around the angel, else send him into the same kind of frenzy as when Dean tries to convince him he's not here just for Dean. "I know, darlin', and I'm sorry, can you forgive me for losing my temper?"

All Cas cares about is that Dean isn't mad at him anymore. "I'm s-still, Darlin'?"

When Cas first came to Dean, terms of endearment were lost on him. "What's darlin'?" he'd asked Dean once—sometime in the beginning, but sometime after Dean began calling him that.

"Darlin' means you're the most special thing to come into my life," Dean had told him. "Darlin' means everything."

"Of course you're still my darlin', now you going to let me hold you or what Cas?"

Cas nods eagerly, divesting himself of the shirts and allowing Dean to place his eyelash collection on the bedside table. Cas clambers onto Dean, like a baby monkey climbing its mama and sobs some more into Dean's chest. "C'mon Cas, no more tears, okay? Everything's going to be just fine."

"I'm t-t-trying, they won't stop."

"Can I help? What do you need Darlin'?"

"Just this Dean, please. Can we do this for a little while?"

"Anything you want Cas." So they lay on the bed, Dean spooning Cas and carding a hand through Cas's hair. Dean pressing kisses to his head and neck and face. They're both in incredible pain, but right now, Dean's the only one capable of solace even if his pain is two fold—he feels his angel's pain just as Cas feels it. On top of it all, he knows he must punish the angel, something he doesn't even want to think about right now, but it's there and he's thinking about it anyway.

Finally Cas stops crying and some of the pain ebbs away, but not out of existence. Dean can feel the angel's sorrow running deep, weaved into his blue light energy. He wants to take the sorrow away. "How come you still can't feel me like I feel you Dean? Did I do it wrong? Have I been doing sex wrong?"

"No Cas. You definitely don't do sex wrong." Cas didn't even know what sex was 'till Dean showed him, but he was a fast learner. He was eager to try anything and everything and he took pride in giving Dean the best orgasms of his life. "I'm not sure I don't feel you like you feel me. I feel everything about you Cas."

"Not everything, Dean," Cas says dejectedly. "If you did, you'd understand why I couldn't have saved those children, why you were my only choice."

"I do. I get it now. Sam explained it all to me."

"Exactly. Sam had to explain it. Your brain might now understand the information," he says touching Dean's head. "But it's not here." He presses his hand over Dean's chest, but not over his heart and Dean knows why. The heart is just another organ of the body to Cas. Writers and poets have turned it into the metaphor it is for love, but a literal heart is the thing that pumps your blood around. What Cas is talking about isn't just to do with one organ, it's every organ, every cell, every molecule. Cas doesn't just want to beat a rhythm in Dean's blood vessels, Cas wants to hum through the energy that fills all of Dean's being. Dean knows that even if 'the heart' is not his symbol, what he's saying still means love, all the same to Cas.

"I don't understand, Cas."

"I'm sorry Dean, it's the best I can explain it. It's just something I feel, it's in me. I knew it since I first felt your light."

Dean pulls his angel tighter to him, reaching out with the bond between them, trying to feel something more. The best he can manage is the energy equivalent to a massage that soothes the angel. He does it 'till Cas is purring again then he presses his lips to Cas's. Cas responds greedy and needy, some of the happiness seeping back. "You're really not sending me back to heaven?" he says when they pull away.

"Nope. Never. I thought you were mine?"

"I am." Cas's voice is so resolute, he sounds less like the naïve, almost child-like angel and more like a being that could raise holy hell, as Dean's seen him do plenty in the past and will again. That eases Dean and without the doubts Sam had been harboring and filling him with, it's easier just to sink his energy into Cas, to allow him to feel like Cas belongs to him.

"That's part of why I have to punish you Cas, I'm responsible for you."

"Oh thank the holy Father!" Cas says squeezing Dean tighter. "I was beginning to think you were going to find me unworthy of taking the time to correct me. Thank you! Thank you Dean!"

Once again, Dean's worried over nothing, but in his defense, it's taken awhile for Dean to understand this aspect of Cas. He thinks he gets it now. Before, when Cas would get like this, it would make Dean sad for the angel, that he really believed lack of punishment, equaled his unworthiness. But to Cas, it means caring. Dean cares enough to make rules for him and to see that he follows through. It's not something Dean would want for himself, but it's something Cas wants and appreciates.

It led Dean to asking if Cas liked being spanked. "Oh no. I don't like it when you say it's time for a spanking. It hurts, but worst of all, it means I've done something, in your eyes, to earn it. I know you are fair and kind and good, you would only say it's time to spank me if it was really time. I do get excited too, because it means I'm going to learn. I make sure always to learn something. I also get to feel our bond at almost its best because you are caring for me. I know you're not doing it to torture me, but because you are worried if you don't get me to stop particular behaviors, something bad could happen. You want good things for me from spankings and that is why I'm grateful you would take the time to spank me. You do it despite its effect on you. I know it's hard for you."

"This time it's just a consequence Cas," Dean feels it prudent to inform him. "I would have done the same thing if it was between you and them, or Sam and them, and I don't expect you'll do any different in the future (though I can hope), but I still want you to think before you choose to disobey me."

"Yes, Dean. And I already have learned something. My human always follows thorough with is actions. If he tells me there will be a consequence then there will be. I like knowing I can trust that even if I know this is hard on you. Thank you Dean and I'm sorry I've had to make this so, but I am proud of you and proud to be yours."

How very different angels think than humans.

One lonely tear drips from Dean's left eye. "Cas?"

"Yes, Dean?"

"Is it okay if we wait for that, can we stay like this a bit longer?"

"Whatever you want, Dean. I will do whatever you want, but can I?" he says gesturing to Dean's cheek. Dean's used to this and knows what that means by now.

"Eyelash?"

"Yes. I'm so happy Dean. I thought I'd collected my last one, but here's yet one more," he says plucking it from under Dean's eye. Dean reaches over to grab his book for him.

  
**THEN**  


More between Dean and Cas, turns into Dean sliding Cas's boxer briefs down just enough to enable him to toy with the angel's hole while he jerks Cas off. Cas begs him to stick his finger inside, but Dean won't. He's no closer to knowing the answers to any of the confounding Cas questions.

The angel never tells Dean no, which would be awesome if he _knew_ his answers, but he doesn't. Cas isn't just agreeable, he's eager. He begs Dean so prettily, and well…Dean really wants to give him what he wants. Most days it's hard to keep his hands off Cas and when they're alone in bed together, fucking touching, Dean can't help himself. He knows he's _supposed_ to feel bad about it, but he doesn't. _You're going straight to hell Winchester_ , he often tells himself, but lord help him, he can't seem to make himself care when the angel is pushing back toward him, making delicious sounds and well…he's already been there (to hell) and got the fucking t-shirt anyway.

Dean feels like the angel wants him, but that's all he has to go on. Actually, it's not _all_ he has to go on, it's just the only thing that's solid enough…

"Jesus Christ, can you two stop fondling each other at the breakfast table?" Sam says.

Dean pulls his hand out of Cas's pants, Cas whines. "But Dean…"

"We'll play later, darlin'."

"Ew. I didn't need to know that either, Dean," Sam says.

Dean laughs at that.

"Aaaannnd, I'm out. Seriously dudes, you two make me want to puke in my own mouth." Sam grabs a coffee and a muffin and leaves.

Dean laughs some more. "Is Sam not feeling well?" Cas asks worried.

"Naw, he'll live, shall we go back to what we were doing?"

"Oh yes, Dean, but Dean?"

"Yeah darlin'?" Dean says, brushing the hair from Cas's eyes. Cas looks nervous and Dean wonders how the angel can go from desperately turned on, to this serious, worried Cas he's got before him now. Dean narrows his eyes softly trying to decipher what Cas is thinking before he says it. He doesn't expect what he gets.

"You always touch my vessel's penis and I like it. Oh glory do I like it Dean, but I was wondering, will I get to touch your penis?"

Dean doesn't mean to give the angel his furious eyes, he's just shocked to fucking hell and even though they've been performing some very non-innocent sexual acts, hearing his innocent angel talking about his penis horrifies him.

For a minute.

"Cas, you can't just ask about a guy's penis like that, dude."

"I'm sorry. Dean I'm sorry. Forget I said anything. Please? I'll never talk about your penis again."

"No, Cas. That's not what I meant. Agh!" Dean never means to do this to Cas, Dean is just Dean: Abrasive and impulsive. They make for a bad combo when your angel is sensitive. "Shh, shh. C'mere, darlin'."

Dean kisses the angel possessively. He's learned it calms him quickly, which, thank fuck, because in the beginning it was hours of coddling and coaxing to calm him. Cas gets worked up again, letting Dean take over his mouth for as long as Dean wants. "

"You want to touch my penis, darlin'?" Dean can't believe he's having this conversation with another living being. A fucking celestial being at that.

Cas looks worried again. Dean watches as he tries to speak, twists his hands then looks down at the bench they're sitting on. Dean uses his thumb and forefinger to guide his chin to level. "Uh-uh, Cas. Eyes up here."

Dean can tell it's hard for him, but the angel maintains eye contact. "You were saying?"

"I, I want to touch yours, I'm curious. I like how it feels when you play with mine and so I thought, what if I could do that to you? Make you feel good like you do to me. I want to make you feel good Dean."

Now that Dean's over the initial _horror_ of having an angel talk about his penis (yes he's aware of how hypocritical that is, since he plays with said angel's penis every night) he's realizing this is Cas once again initiating—like he did with their first kiss. Dean's only hesitation in this moment, is the way Cas asks for things. It's always wrapped in innocent devotion. He can't help feeling like he's taking the training wheels off a kid's bike and Dean knows once those are off, the kid always falls and is woken up to the harsh reality, the skinned knees, of biking. He doesn't want Cas to skin his knees.

"It's okay to want to play with my penis, Cas. I didn't mean to make you think I was mad; I'm not. If anything, god, I want you to touch my penis too."

Cas is mesmerized by the words, like he can't believe his good luck. "I thought…I thought I did something wrong I…I don't think angels were…well never mind it's good. This is good."

Cas doesn't talk much about angels in general. "Cas," Dean says deepening his tone. "What don't you think angels were supposed to do?" Dean guesses.

"Nothing Dean. Nothing. Please don't make me answer."

Fucking Heaven.

"Cas, I'm sorry darlin', but you have to answer. I need to know. I need to know everyone's safe."

Cas bites his lip and nods. "I'm not supposed to talk about it, but angels are taught about humans."

"I figured."

"But there's so much left for us to learn I've realized, since I've been here with you and even the things we do learn, well, most of them are incorrect. Oh Dean. I'm inadequate, I'm so inadequate for you."

"So there's like, a what, a 'learn about humans school for angels?'"

Cas gets excited about Dean's interest. "Yes. We learn about humans and how to serve our human when we get him, or her one day. At first I was worried I'd learned everything wrong, I spent everyday thinking the Holy Father would take me away from you, or you'd send me away, but things are better now."

"How are they better?"

"Well after the first kiss, our bond undergoes our first level of sealing. You can still send me back, but that means God won't take me from you."

That's the best news he's heard in a long time. If this was Sam he were dealing with, he'd be a bit pissed and say something along the lines of 'you've got to be freaking kidding me—you didn't think I'd want to know this crap before?'

But sometimes, Dean can remember to treat the angel with care when necessary—this is one of those times. "That's great news Cas, 'cause I'm not sending you back, ever."

"I want to be yours Dean."

"You are darlin'. I have to ask something else though, Cas. They taught you about kissing your human, but not sex. I don't get that." Fuck. Maybe being with an angel was a first base only kind of deal. So far, it seems like the angel is pretty clueless when it comes to all acts after that.

Cas nods, excited that Dean understands. "Yes. They show us how to seal the bond. The rest we must figure out ourselves. Apparently that's how humans do it…is that incorrect too?"

When Dean thinks about it, 'kissing lessons' are more than even humans gets. He remembers his first kiss with a girl named Lana Inglewood. It was a fucking disaster. She slobbered all over him and he ended up biting her tongue, they both gnashed the fuck outta their teeth. Course he got better, but it's not something they were ever taught, they had to make shit up as they went. And his first sexual encounter…with a dudette and then a dude? Dean's pretty much burned those out of his memory, but he does remember that he knew _shit_ each time.

"No, not incorrect Cas. I…you're right. Dumb question I guess."

"No. Not dumb. You don't know about angels like I don't know about humans. We teach each other and…will you teach me, about sex Dean?"

"Hey, whoa. I thought we were just discussing you touching my penis here? Not full on sex."

"Yes, you're right. I'm sorry Dean."

Deans sighs at the shattered expression on Cas's face. "One step at a time, darlin', that's all I meant. I'll teach you anything you want, but first things first, we have to get you acquainted with my cock."

"Really?"

"Really. Are you sure you're ready for this? It's pretty damn magnificent."

"Oh I know it will be. You're Dean, fair and kind and good, also wise. I'm sure your cock is every bit as magnificent."

Sometimes, Cas's worship of him comes in handy


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by Arkham Insanity 
> 
> Commissioned by Lizard Whisperer

**NOW**

"It's time, Cas."

"Okay, Dean."

Dean doesn’t exactly relish in spanking his angel, but it's no chore either. There are things he likes about it and things he doesn't.

"Do I, do I still get to go over your knee?"

"Of course you do Cas, for some of it. Nothing's changed darlin', we're going to spank you and then it's over."

"Okay. Should I take off my pants Dean?"

"Just undo them, I'll do the rest."

When Cas has his pants undone and long sleeved white shirt untucked, Dean removes the belt from his pants. "I want you to get on the bed and lean down on your forearms, ass up, please."

"Okay. Dean? What will we do after my spanking?"

"What we always do darlin'. I'll hold you until you heal then we'll go see what Sammy's doing."

Dean can't help wondering, does Cas feel remorse over the kids dying? He doesn't seem to be talking about it much, more concerned over where he stands with Dean.

Cas nods. He still looks grim, but his eyes tell Dean he's just as relieved to have a way to reconcile as this being over. Cas climbs on the bed as instructed; kneeling and resting on his forearms. His ass is up, available for Dean to spank and Dean can't help his hardening cock. Dean slides Cas's jacket out of the way, then slowly, he grips the waistband to Cas's pants and underwear and he can feel Cas shiver as Dean pulls everything down, in one swoop and all the way to Cas's knees.

He has to touch Cas (for both their benefits), so he runs a hand over the supple cheeks, toying with Cas's hole. Cas moans, pushing back and Dean pushes Cas's jacket and shirt further out of the way. He pats Cas's ass. "There are consequences when you disobey me Castiel."

"I know Dean. I'm sorry. I knew it would be time for me to have a spanking if I saved you instead of the children, but I'm not sorry I did it."

"Don't you feel anything about it?"

"Yes. Of course I do."

Thank fuck. Relief washes through Dean. He was beginning to think the angel didn't care.

"I made my choice Dean and I'm not sorry about saving you. I wished I could save you and the children and since I couldn't, there's no sense in dwelling on what's past. But Dean if you had perished…" his voice trails off in a choked sob.

"Hush, darlin'," Dean says smoothing a hand over Cas's bare ass cheeks. "I thought you just said there's no sense in dwelling on the past, huh?"

Dean's come to accept that this is the way the angel views things, but it doesn't hurt to have Cas refresh his memory every once in awhile. Dean is the most important thing to him, everything else is just…there, he'll get to it if he can, but Dean and all things associated with Dean come first. He's pretty sure Sam would be next on that list, in part because he thinks Cas cares about Sam, but mostly because Cas knows how much Sammy means to Dean.

Dean sees Cas differently now. The angel might not say the words, but he loves Dean unconditionally. It's a lot like a Mother's bond _to_ her child. The way a mother becomes attuned to baby. Cas (Mother) will do anything for Dean. But in both cases there's always that one exception: Unless it's something putting the child (Dean) in danger. Then all bets are off. That's the only time Cas disobeys Dean.

Cas's devotion to Dean is pure: He's compelled to and he wants to. Dean's sure of that now. Today, Cas did what he wanted: Keep Dean. The angel always talks about wanting to be Dean's, but Dean often wonders if the angel considers Dean his? The line is so fucking blurred now.

"Okay, darlin', I'm going to start now."

"Thank you, Dean."

Dean begins with a few light warm up hits to Cas's cheeks. He lays one down at a time with his belt, the angel only lets out a soft hiss. But when he gives Cas a real hit, the angel cries out, his hips jut forward.

"Ass in the air, Cas," Dean says.

"I'm sorry Dean, it hurts," Cas says repositioning himself.

"It's supposed to Cas. You disobeyed me knowing what would happen—I'm not going easy on you. If you're going to come on hunts with me, I have to be able to trust you. I want to make sure that if you're going to choose to disobey me, it's really worth it. Worth this. You know how much I don't like punishing you." Dean lays down several more punishing whacks with his belt and Cas fights to remain in position.

Cas is crying again, and Dean knows it because he's in two kinds of pain. He's disappointed Dean and he can hardly bear it, but the spanking hurts too—Dean's making sure it does. It takes awhile, but Dean spanks Cas until the color truly is red. Not pink like Cas's usual spankings, but angry, crimson red. The whacks are hard enough to send Cas forward each time, Dean's really putting his arm into it, he is an angel, his grace innately offers some level of protection to this vessel, so Dean has to make sure the hits are hard and solid.

Dean knows how to do a good job and by the time Dean is finished with his belt, Cas is sobbing, which Dean doesn't just hear and see, but feels himself.

"Okay Cas, c'mon up, we just have a little more to go."

"D-Dean, I'm sorry," he says as Dean helps him up and proceeds to help maneuver Cas with his pants and boxer briefs still on.

"I know you are darlin'."

"And Dean, I have to be honest. I still would pick you, even after this punishment." 

Dean sighs—yeah, he knew that already. "C'mon Cas, over my knee, we're going to finish the rest of your spanking. First the hairbrush then I'll finish with my hand for good measure." That he does, because he knows Cas likes it. Cas much prefers when Dean spanks him with his hand.

"Thank you Dean," he says again.

Dean rolls his eyes as he sits on the bed and pulls the angel over his lap and moves his jacket out of the way. He reaches into the bedside table and pulls out the hairbrush they keep in there for just this.

"Can we have sex after this Dean? Before we go see Sam. I'd like that."

"This is supposed to be punishment Cas. No we can't have sex." But Dean wants that more than anything. He can't help the response he has to Cas's tanned ass. He doesn't like how Cas cries while he's getting spanked, but he does like how Cas moans when Dean's balls slap against his pink ass, which can only happen if they fuck pretty quick after a spanking. Hey, sue him. He's only human and he can only resist fucking Cas after punishments so many times—it's a mathematical probability thing.

"Oh. Later tonight?"

"Cas you're supposed to be learning a lesson, dammit."

"Oh I am. My human follows through, he cares a great deal about me. I'm so happy."

"Let's just finish this."

Cas cries some more as Dean uses the hairbrush to lay yet more spanks on the angel's sore ass and gets Cas to spread his legs (far as he can with his pants still on), so he can do a thorough job of the angel's upper thighs. Cas is clearly in pain, but he never complains, or asks Dean to stop. By the time Dean is finished with the hairbrush and moving on to complete the spanking with his hand, Cas's ass is redder than it's ever been and they're both soldiering through the last bit. For the first time, Cas doesn't enjoy Dean hand spanking him.

[](http://imgur.com/pz07tVr)

Dean's more relieved it's over than Cas is and he desperately pulls the angel to him on the bed when it's done and they lay there, with Dean laying a hand over the angel's freshly punished cheeks, so he can feel the heat there. That does things to Dean's cock and he wishes he hadn't told Cas no, but he wants Cas to receive his lesson; that yes, Dean does follow through. Later, he remembers. He didn't say no to later.

"Have I made my displeasure clear, darlin'? You can expect _twice_ that if you disobey an order like that next time."

The angel's eyes go wide. Ah. So Cas is not unaffected by the punishment and it's yet more relief for Dean. For a moment, he was thinking there was no point to this particular spanking, but now he sees it will have the desired effect. He feels the angel will consider the consequences and the next time Dean gives an order, even if it endangers Dean, he'll do as asked. He holds no illusions that Cas will follow through on orders if it means Dean's life, but maybe he'll at least allow for Dean to sustain an injury in favor of what Dean wants him to do. Dean can hope.

"Yes, Dean. You are clear. It was a _very_ thorough spanking. It hurts a lot. I am so lucky."

Dean pulls the angel's head into his neck and kisses his crown and sings to him the stupid song he made up for Cas…sorta. It's to the tune of 'You Are My Sunshine' except darlin' is interposed for all the 'sunshines.'

"It hurts lots Dean," he reminds Dean, looking for a bit of sympathy. "But your singing makes it better. I enjoy the sound of your voice."

See? Cas must love Dean if he's saying shit like that. Dean's a terrible singer. Dean continues to sing and rub Cas's sore ass until the angel has healed. He wipes Cas's tears, kisses his lips, he hugs the angel close to him. "You deserved that Cas. I don't like having to spank you, so harshly Cas, please be good."

"I will Dean. Do you…do you like spanking me at all?"

Dean doesn't have to think about that. "Yes. I like havin' you over my knee darlin', but I don't like using my belt on you."

"I thought so," Cas says, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "I like it too."

"You do?"

Cas nods. "I do, especially when I get to do this."

"We snuggle every night," Dean says hardly believing how much he's come to like snuggling. "You don't have to be spanked to get snuggled."

"I know, but it's different after a spanking. I'm more, aware of you."

Dean's not quite sure what that means, but he can feel the contentment within the angel, _his_ angel, so he figures it must be good.

Cas could speed up the process of his healing, by focusing all his angel mojo to his spanked bottom, but he knows that after a spanking, Dean wants him to allow his grace to heal his vessel on its own time. It still doesn't take long.

When Cas is healed, Dean helps Cas to dress and they head out of their room to find Sam, but all they find is a note: _Haunting. A quick salt and burn. Be back soon._ There's an address (just in case) and a bit of info on the case beside the note. It looks pretty standard, Dean knows Sammy can handle it on his own.

"Well Cas, looks like it's just us. Should we…"

"Definitely."

"Risk on the map table it is!"

**THEN**

The tattoos. Dean was pretty pissed about them at first, especially since he's already got a fucking red handprint on his left shoulder. "What the hell, Cas?" Dean says. He's got his shirt off and he's looking at the strange writing across his collarbone and intricate lines and symbols that spread over his shoulders and down his arms. Sam confirmed Cas's explanation that the words are in Enochian, only no one but Cas can translate it and just because Cas can translate it, it doesn't mean they can figure out what the fuck it means—well not exactly (Dean's sure he can guess) since it's always been hard to understand exactly what the angel means when he says shit.

"I don't fucking get it. I thought you were supposed to be mine. Why am I getting all the markings?" The first set appeared on his back, shortly after he and Cas kissed for the first time, this second round appeared after their first real sex and, oh god, there was nothing else like it. Dean immediately swore off women and well, everyone else. But on that note, he's not really sure what the angel thinks they are. Are they a couple? They have sex now, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're a couple.

Then there's the fact they spend way too much of their time together, touching, feeling and now fucking. Especially the last bit—they've fucked in every corner of the damn bunker.

These tattoos, they mean something and Dean would like to find out what. "These show everyone that I am yours," Cas states proudly.

"Uh, hate to break it to you Cas, but no one knows Enochian. No one's going to know what the fuck it says—except another angel, even Bobby doesn’t know Enochian."

"But I know and so will all the other angels. They'll know I belong to a human now, the best one, it's the highest honor an angel can receive." Cas nuzzles against Dean's bare chest, rubbing his cheek against the new tattoo. Dean's whole body lights up with serenity that isn't his own.

"Cut it out Cas, would ya? This is already weird enough."

"But I'm so happy Dean. I didn't know this would happen, but I'm happy. Don't they make you happy, Dean?"

God damn Cas for looking at him like that. He likes seeing the angel happy, so much, but right now he's fucking pissed. He's got a right to be fucking pissed. "No, they don't make me fucking happy Cas. It would be nice if someone had asked me if I wanted this," he says holding up the arms that are black with holy ink and fucking angel brail. "I spent all this time worrying over whether I was taking advantage of you, but I'm the fucking chode."

"I don't understand your 'chode' reference Dean, but…but I see that you are not pleased, I'm sorry." Cas is deflated, like the kid at the fair whose balloon blew away.

"Aw Cas, I'm not mad at you."

"I, I thought you wanted me Dean, you…we did… _you put yourself in me_ ," he whispers the last part.

Even after all the times and ways they've 'done it,' Cas is still quiet about 'it' (when they're not in the heat of the moment), like he senses it might be a depraved act, but one he can't help fucking loving, _begging_ for.

"C'mere, darlin'." Cas makes his way into Dean's arms without protest, like always. "I'm not displeased with you, I promise. Can't you understand why I might be upset about some unauthorized doodles on my fucking skin?"

That makes the angel cry. Dean feels like a dick. "Nooo…I, I, I thought you'd be proud, but you're not. You don't want me. Are you sending me back?"

Dean squeezes Cas tighter. Of course he doesn't understand. They speak two different languages to each other, often resulting in times like now. He can't seem to get the angel to believe that he's never sending him back. "Cas, what have I told you before? About sending you back?"

"That you won't."

"And I meant it, so no more talk about that. I want you, but I could have done without the tattoos."

In hindsight, Dean doesn't know why he thought that would calm the angel down, because it doesn't, it makes him cry harder. Dean sighs. "Cas. Why is that making you cry, huh?" Now that Dean's got his new ink, Cas's cries send shockwaves through his nervous system, waves of sadness like multiple tidal waves and it's hard to bear much longer. Every time he gets a new tattoo, he feels Cas deeper and…wait a sec.

"Cas? Do these tattoos represent you?"

The angel nods miserably (believe Dean, he can feel it). "And you don't want them."

And you don't want me is what Dean hears. Fuck. One day, Dean and God are having a serious talk about all this. "I want them Cas. I was just surprised, now could you please stop crying? It's hurting."

Cas stops sobbing and rubs his eyes. "Can we, um, can you enter me again? I think that would make me feel better."

Dean knows the angel is genuine (he could feel if he wasn't) and believes sex will heal the ache inside him. Dean rolls his eyes. "Yeah I'll 'enter' you, we're going to have to work on your cool kid lingo, but Cas, are there going to be anymore tattoos?"

Cas nods and Dean tries to hold back his groan.

One Month Later

"Why Dean? Why did you make me do that?" Cas is naked rolled into a ball on the floor in the corner, shielding himself from Dean. Dean can't help but be glad for it. These days, he's less apt to think of Cas as some brainless creature on autopilot and this is just another example. Cas is telling Dean no right now and Dean's happy for that, he just wishes his angel weren't so distressed.

"Cas, I'm sorry. I really thought you'd like it. And I didn't _make_ you, I asked you. You agreed, remember?" He's sure the angel does, but that's irrelevant right now.

Cas has an arm wrapped around his naked thigh, he's leaned against the wall in the corner, hiding his dick from Dean. "You enter me, I don't enter you," Cas says and Dean understands it for the declaration it is.

"Okay, darlin', I'll never ask you to 'enter' me again. Promise. You want me to involve a lawyer? I'll sign where I need to sign, anything you want, just please come back to me." Dean's naked too and it ain't exactly warm in the bunker, he'd like to get back under the covers.

"I didn't like that Dean," he says not moving from his spot.

"I can see that, darlin'. Are you hurt?"

He shakes his head, not looking at Dean. Cas has never given Dean the cold shoulder like this. Dean decides to crouch down and approach the angel slowly, his poor hard cock, flopping around between his thighs. He reaches out a hand and hates the way Cas flinches when Dean makes contact with the skin of his arm. Dean pulls his hand back. "Do you want me to leave you alone for a few minutes, darlin'?"

Cas puts his head to his knees and circles his arms around, hiding his face from Dean and nods. "Okay, Cas. I'm really sorry." And Dean is sorry, he hates the angel upset with him like this, but he can't help the burst of joy at having Cas actually tell him to go away—he's got to tell Sam.

Once Dean's dressed, he leaves to do exactly that. Of course the subject matter isn't the kind you exactly want to talk to your brother about, but Dean needs to hear from Sam that he's not completely immoral.

"This is…good Dean. Real good. I mean, I never want to have to hear about yours and Cas's sex life in such detail ever again, it's enough I have to walk in on you two all the freaking time, but yeah, I think it's safe to say Cas is a sanctioning being by this point. We might never know with one hundred percent certainty, but him saying no to you like this is a pretty clear indication that all the other stuff he does because he actually wants to."

Dean feels relief, so much relief.

Sam starts laughing at him.

"What?"

"It's pretty funny, dude," Sam says.

Dean pushes his brother for that. "You can't feel his fucking sorrow." But in saying that, Dean realizes the angel is no longer crying, or upset. Actually, the angel feels a bit pissed, not Dean level, I'm going to tear you apart pissed, a much gentler form of pissed, but he's angry and it's definitely at Dean.

Dean also senses frustration. The angel must be trying to dress himself.

After a bit of time, Cas comes into the room they tend to call the kitchen even if it's not really a kitchen, but it has all their kitchen type stuff (coffee maker, fridge, Habatchi for burger making, propane camp stove for omelet making, a small sink) but they don't think it was room intended for a kitchen, it reminds Dean more of an office break room.

Cas's pants are on right, but his shirt is half untucked and the buttons aren't done up properly, misaligned so his chest pokes through on one side (the right). His tie is placed around his neck in the loosened way in which it was removed with the knot low and the tongue too short. He's not wearing his trench coat. Both Sam and Dean are staring at him funny.

"Hello Sam," he says. "I regret to inform you that Dean and I are at odds. May I sit beside you?" It's taken a long time for the angel to be able to sit at tables without the strong pull to be on the floor at his human's feet, but he can manage it now without having to have Dean touch him constantly—though Dean knows, Cas would much rather have Dean touching him; clearly not right now.

Dean can feel how much this is ripping the angel apart inside, but holy shit, Cas is angry and he's actually giving Dean the freeze out. Sam's eyes are alight with amusement, loving every minute of this, Dean can't help, but have to keep from laughing himself. The angel is damn cute when he's angry.

"Certainly Cas, can I get you anything?"

Cas thinks a moment. "The humans on T.V. usually have a drink when they are at odds with their special person, I should probably do that. I think Dean would approve."

Sam looks over at Dean and Dean nods, one drink won't make Cas drunk anyway (he'd have to drink a whole liquor store) and he's further amused on two more counts: The angel talking about him as if he's not in the room (in fact he hasn't even acknowledged Dean) and that even in his strange version of anger, he's only doing things he thinks Dean would approve of.

Sam pours him a tumbler of whiskey and Cas stares miserably at the amber liquid not drinking it. "Do you want to talk about it, Cas?" Sam asks.

"I miss him," Cas says painfully. Dean taught him about 'missing.'

"Oh for the love of…I'm right here, Cas," Dean says thinking he should put an end to the angel's pout session. Sam glares at Dean, his eyes saying: Be quiet. Dean slumps himself in a chair beside the table with the coffee machine, feeling like a heel.

"You miss him? Why don't you just go to him, Cas?"

"I told him to go away. I'm angry, Sam."

"Are you trying to cool down before you go back to him?" Sam translates.

"I think that would be for the best," Cas says sagely. "Sam?"

"Yes, Cas?"

"Why do think Dean would get me to so something like that?" Of course Cas hasn't told Sam what 'that' is, but Cas knows Dean is here (even if he's pretending he's not) and has likely guessed Dean told Sam all about it.

"You know how fair Dean is. You tell me yourself all the time. You say: He's fair and kind and good. Dean thought you might want to takes turns. Taking turns is fair to humans, that's all it was Cas."

Cas's anger melts away and Dean can feel the mortification spread through Cas, sickening him. "Oh god. Oh holy Father, what have I done? That's right, Dean is fair and kind and good, of course that's why he'd ask me to enter him, he was taking turns. He's always doing the right thing for me. Always. I thought…I thought…"

The angel is having the angel version of a heart attack and possibly a stroke at the same time. "What did you think, Cas?" Sam urges.

Cas can barely say it. "That he was telling me I wasn't good enough for him. He didn't want to enter me anymore and make me feel good. I was thinking, why couldn't he just tell me instead of having to hurt me so? I thought he was, being mean."

"Didn't, um, entering him make you feel good too, Cas?" Sam looks totally grossed out at having to have this particular conversation with the angel.

"No. It feels terrible. Cold. Empty. When he's in me, it fills me up with light so luminous, it makes my grace glow."

"Um, okay, that's enough details Cas. Do you understand that he wasn't trying to make you feel that way now?"

"I, I do, but now…oh holy Father," he says again. "I've ruined everything. I should have trusted him, I know I can always trust Dean. I…" Cas shoots back the whiskey in one go.

"Cas?" Dean says slowly approaching. Cas starts trembling.

"Dean, I'm sorry," he says desperately, finally speaking to Dean again. "I don't deserve you, I should have trusted you."

"Cas," Dean says steady and calm. "I'm glad this happened."

"Y-you are?"

"Yes. I want you to tell me what you like and what you don't like."

Sam makes a quiet, quick exit sensing where this conversation is going. "But if you like it Dean and want to take turns—"

"C'mere darlin'. Please?"

Cas rushes to Dean, Dean wraps his arms around Cas. "I don't want to take turns if it's something you don't like, besides I like it better the other way too."

"You do?"

"Yes. You're all mine Cas," Dean says because he knows how much the angel likes it and well, it's fucking true. He moves the hair off Cas's forehead and presses a kiss there, glad to have is angel back.

Cas beams. "That's good, because I really don't like it Dean. I was working up to telling you I never wanted to do it again, but then when Sam explained, I thought I'd have to figure out a way to suffer through it. I'd do anything for you Dean, but that was really terrible." Cas shivers.

"You already made it pretty clear how much you hated it darlin', we'll never do it again, I swear."

Cas nods happily breathing in the scent of Dean.

"Anything else you don't like, you wanna get off your chest?" Dean's already picked up on a few things Cas doesn't like, through their bond. There aren't many, but he'd really like to hear Cas say them.

"Nothing bothers me about you," Cas lies.

"Not even when I put my dirty mitts on your eyelash collection?"

Cas tenses.

"Aha! I knew it."

"I like to keep them clean, Dean and I'm worried they'll get lost."

"I won't touch it anymore, how's that?"

"Thank you, Dean."

"Anything else?"

"Please don't make me say, Dean."

"C'mon darlin'. I want you to be happy—I get to see that, don't I? Seeing you happy, makes me happy."

"Well, there is one more thing."

"Yes?"

"In the morning when you awake from your nightly recharge," Cas says (it's the best Dean's been able to explain it to the angel). "You kiss me and oh how I love you kissing me Dean…but you…"

Dean takes pity on him. He knows how hard this is for Cas. "You saying you don't like my morning breath, darlin'?"

Cas bites his lip and nods embarrassed. "It's a little, putrid."

Dean laughs the laugh he knows gives Cas bubbles. "I bet it is. Okay, Cas, no more smelly kisses. See? This is good. I like knowing I can do things for you."

"You don't seem to like when Sam complains about things."

"Well that's because, well, Sam's not you. Let's leave it at that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What'cha think of that artwork? I was super impressed by the size and redness of Cas's ass. LOL. Thanks again, Arkham and LW!


	5. Five

**THEN**

So Dean and Cas have sex now quite regularly. They've been fondling each other and kissing a long time now, do just about everything together (even sleep together)…but, Dean has to wonder, does that qualify as a relationship?

Hard to say. Now that he's not as worried about the rest of it, he has more time to think about it.

Especially if you don't know if your partner even knows he's your partner. How do you have _that_ discussion with the celestial being you're fucking? There are no books on that, Dean's looked and if they exist, the bunker likely has'em. Even Sam's not been much help on that front, which means Dean's going to have to take this situation into his own hands.

It's just…does Cas even know what a relationship is? He didn't know what sex was 'till Dean showed him. Hell, it was next to impossible to get Cas to understand that Dean doesn't 'go away' when he sleeps.

Therefore, Dean decided to…pull a Dean. In other words, he doesn't know how to ask with words, so he's going to test the angel, like a rat in a lab, put him in a scenario and see how he reacts. It helps that he can sense how the angel feels.

Dean takes Sam and Cas to a local burger joint, one where he knows the waitresses are hot. Their waitress, Tina, is especially hot. If Cas doesn't get jealous of her then he'll know his answer. If Tina were flirting with Cas, Dean would want to…well let's just leave it at, he wouldn't want that.

Dean's been flirting with Tina, making eyes at her and Tina knows what's up. She's interested in Dean—who isn't? "Hey, sweetness," Dean says. "How's about some bacon on that burger?"

"Coming right up," she says with a wink that Cas sees.

Only problem is Sam sees too (why did he bring Sam along?) and Sam knows what Dean's doing. He's giving Dean his best bitchface for it too. Cas is oblivious. He has no idea what's going on…but what if it's: he doesn't care what's going on?

Dean's not sure; he'd better take this up a notch.

When the sexy waitress comes back, he gives her the Dean eyes and even compliments her, tells her they should get together sometime.

Cas is unconcerned.

Dean is disappointed.

Dean doesn't want Cas to be hurt in a big way or anything, but he was hoping for some reaction and as this batch of Tom Foolery unfolds ('cause that's what it is, and a stupid idea at that) Dean comes to realize that this wasn't just for proof that he and Cas are an item, but proof that Cas gives a rat's ass about him.

Now Dean's the one dejected. This was dumb and if he didn't know it now, that look Sam's giving him says Sam's going to make sure he knows later.

Even when the waitress leaves Dean her phone number, Cas gets excited. "Did you make us a new friend Dean? That's so great! Maybe she'll play Risk with us. She's nice. She gave you all that extra bacon and didn't even charge you. But, but, she can't have the Dean Skittles, those are mine okay? You won't let her, will you Dean?"

Fuck. Dean's an idiot. The innocence in Cas's voice kills him, especially with what he tried to do. Still, Dean can't help his heart breaking just a little bit, feeling like he's lost the love of his life. Cas doesn't care one way or the other if he takes the waitress home. He fucking wanted Cas to care, just a little bit.

He stares into Cas's blue eyes and smiles with so much love for his angel ('cause he fucking loves him anyway) and Cas smiles back. Cas has no clue what Dean tried to do, thank Christ, but he will hear it from Sam and he fucking deserves every word.

"No Cas. She can't have your Skittles. They're all yours, darlin'." Dean pockets the number. Maybe he will use it. After all, he's just Cas's pet human.

They're standing, getting ready to leave, but something's in Dean's eye, so Dean rubs it. In the same moment, Tina walks by on her way to another table, but of course she's taking a last opportunity to ogle Dean. Dean looks up to smile at her. "See you soon," he says.

She looks at him funny. "Oh, look. Make a wish handsome, a stray eyelash. I'll get that for you." She reaches out to pluck the stray lash from his upper cheekbone, just under his eye.

Meanwhile, Dean's blood goes cold. Dean's a hunter. He charges head first, stupidly sometimes, into terrifying and dangerous situations, but never does his blood freeze the way it does now, like he's a fucking fish. The hairs on the back of Dean's neck prickle too and he senses the overwhelming jealousy peeling off the angel. Cas is breathing hard (something he doesn't have to do, but a habit he's picked up since living with Dean and Sam) and Dean doesn't know what the fuck to do. This is what he wanted (well not quite _this_ , he never would have fucking offered Tina his eyelashes, Dean's not that much of a whore) but he doesn't fucking want it anymore.

Cas watches in horror as Tina carelessly flicks the eyelash to the ground.

"Okay, time to go," Sam says taking charge of the situation that is quickly dissolving into disaster. Aha! Dean knew he brought Sam for a reason.

"Dean," Cas says needing to hear something, anything from Dean to make him feel better over what just happened.

Fuck. Dean did not plan for this. Even he wasn't stupid enough to cross the eyelash line with Cas, but until now, he really thought it was just a bizarre-o angel thing. Turns out, when an angel collects your eyelashes, you're an item, a serious item. Cas hasn't said as much, but Dean can see it in his eyes. The angel always claims that he's Dean's and Dean's not his, but Dean recognizes Cas's behavior: it's all possession. _How dare someone stake claim on his human like that?_

Dean does get what he wanted though. He can see now—it's been there all along in all the little things Cas does. Dean's still not sure their relationship is a relationship by human definition, nor is he sure it's even one by angel definition, but it's their own definition and it has something to do with Skittles and eyelashes and darlin', something no one can name, but they both know is there.

And man, did he fuck up. Like, colossally.

"Dean," Cas says again when he doesn't get a response fast enough. "She was supposed to come over to play Risk with us, not touch your eyelashes. Those are mine. Mine. I thought _I'm_ darlin'?" Cas looks fucking crushed. Like his heart is breaking and he doesn't know how to handle it. He's desperate for Dean's reassurance right now, genuinely confused by this whole event.

Tina looks between the two after hearing Cas's kooky-ass accusations, since even Tina can tell, he's just said the Cas equivalent of: _'What the fuck are you doing with this floozey?'_

Dean knows he's going to hear it from Cas, it's going to be a fucked up mess of tears and heart pain, but Dean's…happy. Cas cares. He fucking cares and Dean's finding it hard to feel sorry. He's got more proof to file away in the Cas loves Dean file. It feels like that 'happy-end-of-a-movie' feeling where all the issues have just been resolved and the rom-com couple can dance off in the rain together.

Only, uh, first to resolve the emotional blood bath.

Sam manages to get the pair to the car and he lets Cas ride shotgun, happy to watch the show and smirk at Dean from the backseat (Dean can see the fucker in the rearview), all that's missing is his gigantor-sized popcorn. He can read Sam's thoughts too, which all comes from living with each other for so long: _'You got yourself into this mess, get yourself out.'_

"Dean, why did she do that?" Cas says, still baffled. "How come she doesn't know _I_ collect your eyelashes, that you said I could have them. I'm still darlin' aren't I? Did I do something wrong?"

Fuck. Cas is worried this is his fault and Dean hates Cas blaming himself, especially when this is one hundred and twenty percent Dean's fault. Dean takes a big breath and releases the truth. "I led her to believe she could, er, uh, have my eyelashes Cas," he says using language Cas will understand. "This is my fucking fault. I didn't mean for it to happen Cas. I'm so sorry."

Cas looks like he wants to die. His wild holy angel rage is still boiling on the burner, but it's quickly overcome with sad, broken, terrible heartbreak.

And Dean gets to feel it. It's annihilating. Dean has a hard time driving back to the bunker; he somehow manages it.

Sam takes off to his room, so do Dean and Cas; Cas has gone silent wrapped in on himself, drowning in misery.

"Look Cas, all this went up the creek. Fuck. It was supposed to be harmless flirting, you were supposed to get mildly jealous, tell me to never have sex with anyone, but you again and that would have been that. She wasn't supposed to touch my fucking eyelashes. I swear."

But Cas is focused on something else now. "Wait—do you enter other beings aside from me?" He's on the border of outrage and is now very much the furious angel Dean knows he can be.

"I, uh, well no, er, that is, not since we started kissing and shit."

"Did you want to enter that female human Dean?" Cas's jaw is clenched, his teeth looking like they can pulverize stone.

"No. No way. I swear. It was just to make you…ugh…it was fucking stupid and it's over, so can we please forget this happened? I fucking get it now."

Cas doesn't look ready to 'forget this.' "That eyelash was mine and now it's on the cold diner floor—I don't even get that eyelash Dean and you want me to just forget this? On top of that, I now receive the knowledge that you wish to enter others. This makes me have pain Dean, even though my vessel has not been damaged. How is that possible?"

"It's not like that Cas. I don't want to enter others. Will you just…can I hold you, please?" Dean's body aches to hold Cas. He's right in front of Dean, but he feels so far away and Dean's worried he'll never get to hold Cas again. Maybe he'll decide to ask to go back to Heaven. What would Dean do then?

"Can I be alone, Dean? Just for a little while, please? You said if something bothered me, I should tell you, but I don't know how to put words to this. I need to figure it out." 

The angel that never wants to be parted from Dean has just asked for alone time. Dean doesn't know how to deal with his own defeated disappointment. "Yeah Cas. I'll leave you alone."

Dean gets the lecture he expected from Sam, but Dean has to point out the one good thing: that he knows, least he's ninety-five percent sure, the angel and him are in a relationship, in other words, the angel fucking cares about Dean on a level that's not slave to his master.

"Well, guess you got your wish. Hope you're happy." Sam's in no mood to give Dean that one. Much as Sam worries about Dean and poses the contrary perspective about Cas, Sam has come to care for Cas and feels the need to protect him, like he would Dean.

Dean's not happy (for Sam's information); he's freaking miserable.

Later, Cas comes out of their room. Dean's still in their 'kitchen,' head in his hands. "Dean?"

"Yeah, darlin'?"

"I, I'd like to go to bed now."

The angel doesn't sleep, Dean's excited at what he knows the angel means by that. "Of course."

Dean gets Cas ready for bed like he always does, but tonight, Dean worships him like never before. Taking his time removing Cas's clothes, kissing every inch of him right down to every toe, rubbing his arms and carding hands through Cas's dark hair, the whole while thanking whoever he needs to thank that Cas is letting him do this. Cas is silent the entire time.

Tonight, he does put pajamas on the angel, unsure if the angel wants Dean to enter him.

When Dean's spooned around him in their bed, Cas finally speaks again.

"Today was a sad day," Cas says.

"Yeah Cas. I fucking agree with you on that one. How can I make it up to you?"

Cas sighs. "You don't have to, Dean. I thought about everything long and hard. Somehow, I became shrouded in human emotions today. The truth is, I am yours, you're not mine…our bond…well, it's where we both want it to be. Today was a good reminder of that."  
Dean has no idea what the fuck that means.

"I have no right to ask you not to enter others, or not to give your eyelashes away to diner waitresses, I just wish you wouldn't. I think now that I feel, perhaps like a human does, there's no way to stop it."

Dean cards a hand through Cas's hair, kissing his head. "Cas. I only enter you now. I fucking swear it. I don't want anyone, or anything else," he includes being thorough. "Just you my darlin'."

"I…that makes me happy Dean. I know I'm not supposed to ask such things, but you said to tell me when something bothers me and that bothered me. I can't explain what I was feeling, just that her touching you made me crazy."

"That's called jealousy, Cas." Dean can't help, but feel warmed by Cas's jealousy. "I'm sorry Cas. Fuck, I'm so god damned sorry. Can you forgive me?"

"Nothing to forgive Dean," he says and Dean knows he means it.

"Of course there is. I don't care what you learned up in Heaven. This isn't the same as morning breath. With humans, if you're having sex, each person has the right to define parameters, of course those parameters can be rejected, but you still have the right to ask for them."

Cas is quiet for a minute. "I think it would be best if you only enter me and that only I collect your eyelashes. I wanted to singe her fingers off for that alone, but when you mentioned entering others I wanted to do a lot more than that."

Holy fuck. Dean swallows hard. "Deal. But no burning off people's fingers, or anything else, okay?"

"But how will they know? You aren't mine."

"Course I'm yours Cas."

"No. You're not," the angel says with sad certainty. "But I thank you for agreeing to this. It really is best for the others. I don't know that any amount of spankings could stop me from hurting someone who touches you in a way I didn't like."

Dean gets a chill and must always remember that as much as Cas can be a sweet, innocent, creature, he's also deadly when he's got a reason. "I will Cas. I will spank you if you hurt anyone like that and it will be a severe spanking."

"Fine," Cas says defiantly. Dean likes his defiance, likes that some of the subjugation bleeds out of Cas with the passing of time, but it makes it hard in times like this and he wishes he could go back to having Cas obey his every command. He doesn't want anyone getting hurt, on account of the acts of stupidity he's likely to commit.

"I'll tell them darlin', okay? I'll make sure everyone knows I'm just for you. We are…humans call it dating exclusively, that's what we're doing, okay?"

"Dating exclusively?" Cas asks confused.

"It means, I only enter you and you only let me enter you. You're the only one who gets to collect my eyelashes and you're the only one who I call 'darling.'"

"Darlin', not darling," Cas corrects.

"That's right," Dean chuckles. "Does that make sense?"

"I get to keep the Dean Skittles too, right?"

"Yeah."

"I get a lot more stuff than you do in this agreement. Don't you want anything?" Cas asks.

"Got everything I need right here in my arms."

Cas snuggles back into him and Dean feels his pain melt away to nothing, replaced with the contented bliss Cas usually feels when he's next to Dean like this. Huh. Dean sorely wishes he did this in the first place. Talk. It seems there is language the angel can understand in terms of relationships and humans. Dean just has to stop acting like a bull in a china shop and fucking think for half a minute.

"Th-thank you Dean," Cas breathes a shuddery breath.

"Anything for you Cas."

**NOW**

"I'm green and pink," Cas says when they get there. Dean's glad this instance hasn't seemed to take Cas backward, that he's still vocal enough about what he wants. Dean's worked hard to get here with Cas.

"You're always green and pink, Cas."

"I just wanted to make sure nothing's changed," Cas says looking down at his feet. Okay, so maybe they aren't escaping this without some repercussions.

"C'mon, Cas. Eyes up here. Something has changed," Dean says pressing a kiss to Cas's lips, but I promise it's good."

"If you say so Dean," the angel says ever ready to agree with Dean.

"Let's play."

Cas is not as forgiving of Dean's 'cheating at Risk' as he used to be, but only because Cas has discovered the joys of flirting. Dean sees the smile in Cas's eyes as he shouts, "you did! You did take them, Dean!"

"You're seein' stuff Cas. I didn't take nothing."

"Then what are you chewing?"

"My tongue."

"Let me see."

"No."

"Yes." Cas attacks him, sliding across the map table, skittles skittering everywhere and Cas thrusts his tongue into Dean's mouth, Dean lets him even if he knows it will give him away. He's sure Cas can taste the too sweet sugar, coating Dean's mouth and he doesn't care, he wants to kiss Cas into oblivion.

"Is it later Dean?" Cas says, not caring about the stolen skittles.

"Yes, Cas. It's later." Dean stands up and the angel wraps his legs around Dean, resuming their kissing session. Dean grips Cas's freshly healed ass cheeks and breathes into their kiss. But Dean does something today he's never done before. Until now, there's always been a thread of restraint, Dean holding back his true feelings about Cas because, well, so many reasons.

Afraid for him, afraid for Cas. Worried he was hopelessly losing himself to something that could never love him back, worried he was just molesting Cas, taking advantage of Cas, worried about, everything really.

But not today and not anymore. Fuck it. He loves Cas, he knows that and even if he didn't think Cas could ever love him back (which he doesn't think anymore), he wants to give Cas his full love, all of it, blast him with it like a race car whipping wind at you on a speedway.

And he's open to whatever Cas gives him, _can_ give him. To Dean, it's love. The worship, the devotion…If that's not love, then neither is anything else.

Dean's gotta be in Cas, gotta fill him with his version of life force. He wants to be as close to Cas's grace as he can be. He scrambles to get Cas's jacket off and is already working at loosening Cas's tie while Cas continues to wildly suck his face.

"Cas," Dean says trying to get Cas to let him pull his mouth away, so Dean can get the tie over his head, but he can't, Cas won't part his lips from Dean, exerting the strength that's always been there, that Dean knows is there, but doesn't ever use against Dean. Cas usually let's Dean do what he wants with him, let's Dean maneuver him like a rag doll. Dean gives up, and starts on Cas's pants.

When he's got them undone (with much difficulty) he lifts Cas and Cas lets Dean slam him on his back, on the map table. Dean's frenzy to get his cock inside of Cas, grows. Cas is already lost to some otherworldly trance and Dean's tangled in the same web. He and Cas kiss forever, Cas with undone pants, and Dean trying to get his own undone. Can't. Fuck. He needs to be in him. God damned clothes!

Dean puts a hand to either side of Cas's head, giving up on their pants for the time being and just kissing Cas, his hands crunch down on skittles and more plink to the floor. Dean climbs up the table (mouths still attached) and starts humping Cas's still clothed cock. The friction is nice, it's real fucking nice, but it's not good enough. Now that Dean's kneeled his way onto the table with Cas, he can get at his own jeans easier. Cas has his legs wrapped like a fucking vice around his torso, but they clear his jeans.

Dean's able to easily (frantically) pops the button to his jeans and begins the too slow process of trying to wriggle them down over his ass. When he gets them and his underwear midway down his thighs, he thinks, eh, good enough and tries for Cas's again.

Thankfully, Cas is getting more desperate too, even through whatever dusty haze he's swimming in right now and he assists Dean by placing his feet on the table and lifting his hips, allowing Dean to yank them down to Cas's ankles. "Lube, Cas," Dean says into Cas's mouth and Cas holds his hand out to his discarded jacket, the lube flies to Cas's hand like a magnet to a fridge.

Dean slicks Cas up, sloppily and only has to prep him a little. They fuck a lot, the angel's channel seems to respond and open to his dick quickly, now. It's difficult with his jeans trapping his legs, but Dean's able to work his cock into Cas, slamming it home, then it's, ah…the relief. Slow and hard, hard and fast, slow and soft, fast, slow, hard, soft, in, out, crash, slap, and oh yeah.

Dean doesn't remember feeling this desperate for Cas. Finally, Cas releases his mouth, pushing on Dean's chest, looking, looking, looking for something.

"Cas?"

Cas is about to latch onto his mouth again, but Dean takes over this fucking pony ride, something's coursing through him and it makes him strong, strong enough to turn the angel over despite the angel climbing toward his mouth again. It's a rush of power that Dean bathes in then harnesses. Everything about their sex is wild (even Cas), and now Dean is too.

He flips Cas on his front, letting his cock slip from Cas's ass and having to listen to Cas's whines as he tries to chase Dean. "Stay, Cas. Don't worry, darlin'. I'm going to keep fucking you, so hard—you'll feel me longer than an hour, promise."

Keeping one hand on Cas at all times, Dean hops off the table momentarily and shucks off his jeans and boxer briefs. Now his legs are unencumbered and he can put more power into his thrusts.

Cas obeys him, suddenly brought to heel from whatever power is possessing him, even if it's still clinging to him.

Dean's back on the table. Cas moans relief as Dean's sliding back into him, Cas's ass practically devouring his cock. "Yeah, that's it Cas. Fu-uck." There's a lot of moaning and noises Dean's sure no one's ever heard in their lives. Dean beats on Cas's ass with his cock and Cas is enjoying every minute of it.

He grabs Cas by the neck and pushes his head down, idly noticing Cas's face, pressed up against Russia, green skittles, his blue, blue eyes lolling back into his vessel's head, in absolute bliss. "Dean, Dean, Dean…" Cas chanting over and over…

Cas comes, all over the table and the Skittles and probably the Indian Ocean. Dean releases into Cas, always into Cas, but it's like never before, it's like all his love and devotion for the angel is reaching into Cas, spilling over, hot and possessive. Dean's always tried to avoid feelings like that, being possessive with _his_ angel, but there's no denying that's how he feels and there's no stopping Cas from wanting to be _his_ anyway. Dean's tired of trying to shove those feelings aside, so very tired…so fuck it. Cas is his and damn anyone who tries to say different.

Dean collapses, pulling Cas to him, sucking on his neck, marking him—the first of many marks—and relishes in touching Cas, free of guilt, free of worry over judgment and just free. There's a new tattoo on him—he can feel the warmth spreading over the back of his neck—but there's one on Cas now too, this one's not in Enochian. _Dean_ it says.

Shit. "Fuck, Cas. Cas? There's a…"

"It's there? Oh it's there, it's finally there. Thank you Dean. My Dean." The angel's never said 'my Dean' before. It's always 'my human' or some variation of, but in a tone that never indicated ownership. Cas's tone now is all purchase. A little pit of fear begins to grow in Dean's stomach. He hasn't missed the angel's thank yous.

"Cas…what does my new tattoo say?"

Cas is quiet, then, "i-i-t says, Castiel. Dean, I'm sorry." He's not that fucking sorry.

Dean is baffled. "I thought you said these tattoos didn't mark me? That sounds like a fucking mark to me."

"Oh…well these ones are. I am yours, I've always been yours, I enjoy being yours…but you are mine now too."

The possessive little…huh, well, Dean supposes that's okay since he feels the same and it's too late now anyway, so what's the sense in worrying over it? Dean is the angel's, he knows he belongs to Cas and now everyone will know, just like Cas not-so-secretly desires.

"I can feel you all the way inside me now Dean. Right in here," Cas says hugging himself with both arms, contented. "I was hoping and hoping this would happen. The holy Father has blessed me with the best gift of all."

"I'm glad darlin', but Cas, why Castiel? Is that what you'd rather be called?" Dean knows now that the tattoos are somehow connected to Cas, just like the others. Their relationship and feelings for the other influence what gets written on Dean's skin and now Cas's. There's still so much to discover about the strange tattoos, he's barely touched the surface.

"Oh no Dean. Castiel is just longer, bigger. You know? So they're warned."

"Warned?"

"If anymore women or men sleep with you, I'm afraid I will have to kill them. Sorry Dean. You are mine now and I am yours." Cas snuggles further into Dean, like he didn't just threaten to murder anyone.

"Is that what just happened, Cas? Did I just give myself to you?"

"Yes. And you received some of my grace, because you let me all the way inside you. You are strong enough to be my mate now. I don't have to hold back when you enter me anymore," he says with a gleam in his blue eyes.

That sounds like a perk. "Am I an angel now Cas?"

"Not quite. Somewhere in between."

Well, holy shit. More power's cool. He's always been a kick ass hunter, now he'll be that much better. "You're not serious about the whole killing people thing, are you?"

"I am. You are mine," he repeats. Like that's an understanding in and of itself.

 _Well fuck me,_ Dean thinks. He spent all this time worrying about nothing. Cas is a possessive little lion, with claws. Though, to be honest, he doesn't like the feelings and thoughts he gets when he thinks about someone else touching Cas. Killing sounds nice in comparison.

"Yeah darlin', I'm all yours now, okay? Just yours."

"I know Dean. That's what the tattoo says."

"Why you little—"

Cas cuts him off with another kiss, but this one's regular, like their always kisses, not like the fucking supernatural ritual style kisses they were sharing moments ago. "Dean. My Dean, will you sing me my song? I'd really like to hear that now."

"Yeah. Okay, Cas. You are my darlin', my only darlin', you make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my darlin' away." Dean sings several rounds of that feeling the new depths of Cas he can now reach and he explores every inch of Cas's energy. He feels Cas doing the same to him. How lucky are they? They can know how the other feels, without having to guess, without having to prove it…like everyone else.

"Dean?"

"Yeah Cas?"

"I think I know what I love you is now. It's…it's this right now."

"It's right now and it's always, Castiel."

"Good. I am quite enjoying love. Is it like this for everyone?"

"I don't know, Cas. Should we go ask'em?"

"Maybe later."

Dean snuggles as close as he can into Cas, his cock filling again (already) for round two.

"I was right," Cas says after a time.

"About?"

"You did steal my Skittles."

"Yeah, I'm caught—but I'm not sorry, they were delicious." Dean slides into Cas's ass again, flipping him like a pancake, his cock sliding along the inside of Cas's still very open hole as he spins.

He can see Cas's smiling face. He slides Cas's pants and underwear off the rest of the way, so Cas can wrap bare legs around _his_ Dean's torso as Dean pumps into him again. "I let you take them you know."

"I know. And I know that's I love you, Cas, you letting me take your Dean Skittles."

"Like, like eyelashes?" Cas says, eyes wide, excited to be realizing love how a human might realize love.

"Yeah. Like eyelashes Cas and…and like darlin'," Dean says pumping in and out, slow and lazy.

"Then you must have known everyday, I'm so glad you knew. My Dean, so smart and so wonderful."

Dean thinks about how he'd articulate his doubts and his fears to the angel, but comes up with nothing and it's no longer important anyway. Besides, Dean probably did know on an unconscious level. "Yeah, Cas. Everyday."

"Good. I'm going to re-double my efforts, I missed an eyelash last week—that will never do—I want you to know how much I love you, always. I'm never going to miss another one again."

Dean chuckles. "Okay, darlin'."

There are six rounds of sex on the poor map table, but everything's cleaned up by the time Sam gets back. Right away he knows something's different between Cas and Dean; he spots the new tattoos.

Sam smiles. "Finally."

"You knew?" Dean asks.

"Sorta. I had enough reason to believe anyway; figured it out a while back. Sorry I couldn't tell you, it would have ruined the magic, you had to go into the ritual firm in your own beliefs on the matter, the realizations, you had to come to them on your own."

Dean throws a book at him, which he catches laughing. "Still, I'm sure you could have tipped me off somehow," Dean grumbles.

"How was the hunt, Sam?" Cas asks.

"Good, but if you two are finished your honeymoon, I could use some help. Got a new hunt."

"Already?"

"Yeah. Double feature. I got the ghost that was haunting the old Robinson manor, but turns out it's a family curse. We have a few Robinson homes to visit. Long story, I'll explain in the car."

"Yeah, okay. Just let me grab some extra stuff. We'll meet you at the Impala."

They're all ready to go when Cas gets excited in the special way he does when he's found another eyelash to collect. He grabs it and races to add it to his book. "This will be my post-Dean tattoo section," he says happily.

Finally, Dean knows what that means.

When Cas is done, Dean pulls him in for a kiss. "I love you too, Cas."

THE END


End file.
